


Bits...

by missmichellebelle



Series: Drabbles [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Drabble Collection, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2017-12-20 10:33:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 61
Words: 36,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/886229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmichellebelle/pseuds/missmichellebelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of unrelated Klaine drabbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Let Go

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for **pureklaination** on **11/29/11**.

“Why are you looking so serious?” Blaine flopped down on his bed next to Kurt, tilting his head inquisitively but not reading over Kurt’s shoulder (he’d learned by now that that was something he really  _shouldn’t_  do).

“Well, semester finals are a serious thing,” Kurt responded without looking up from his book. Blaine leaned back, peering at the book as covertly as possible when Kurt let out a sharp, “Stop that, it’s history.”

“Finals aren’t for another two weeks, though.” It’s not like Blaine didn’t study. He did. Just not two weeks in advance. That almost seemed abnormal, but Kurt had always been a hard worker. Blaine had thought before that it had been Dalton that made him that way, but Kurt seemed insistent on proving him just how wrong he was.

“Yes, and I have no intention of messing up my GPA senior year.” Kurt turned a page lazily, and Blaine watched him silently. Even two weeks was a bit insane for Kurt, and it certainly wasn’t what Blaine had had in mind for their Friday night when he’d invited Kurt over.

“I think you’re looking for a distraction.” As minutely as it was, Blaine saw Kurt react, saw his body still, and that was enough to confirm his suspicions. But Blaine knew when not to push, and this was certainly a ‘don’t push Kurt’ moment. So he rolled off the bed, missing the way Kurt’s eyes flicked to him almost desperately, and walked over to his radio.

“What are you doing.” It wasn’t a question because Kurt knew perfectly well what Blaine was doing.

“What am I ever doing?” Blaine hit play.

“I ask myself that multiple times a day.” Blaine heard Kurt sigh and the book shut.

“Any luck with that answer?” Blaine spun on his feet to the beat of the music, shimmying dramatically towards Kurt who cracked a smile.

“The jury’s still out.” They reached for each other almost in sync, Blaine pulling Kurt from the bed and jiggling his arms back and forth. “I’m going to guess and say you’re being ridiculous though.” Kurt was trying as hard as possible to sound unamused, but his lips were lifting in that smile, Kurt’s only-for-Blaine smile, and Blaine knew he was already letting go.

“Aren’t I always?” Blaine spun Kurt in a circle, bringing him close and smacking a kiss against his cheek that sent Kurt instantly into laughs.

“Always.” Kurt smiled back, loosening his neck, his shoulders, his hips, his legs. Schoolwork was a good distraction, of course. But Blaine would always be a better one.


	2. Drive Me Crazy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **12/10/11**.
> 
> Word-for-word Klaine AU of a scene from the movie _Drive Me Crazy_.

_Riiiing riiiiiiiiing_ …

“Give it up, loser, she’s not coming.”

Kurt paused for just a second, sucking in a deep breath and shutting his eyes.

“Take me to Centennial, Blaine.” It was out of his mouth before he could even stop it, and he almost regretted it. Almost.

“Kurt?”

His eyes flashed to the window, and he watched as the darkness of Blaine’s room was suddenly illuminated. His mess of curls came into view as he moved to open his window. It was something old and familiar that Kurt couldn’t help but mirror, moving to his own window albeit a bit clumsily.

“How did you get this number?”

The phones were useless now, Kurt knew. He could hear Blaine across the gap between their windows and through the phone. Kurt leaned on the sill, looking at him.

“I remembered it. Take me?” Kurt could hear his voice inching towards begging and he swallowed, willing it back in. He did  _not_  beg.

“You’re drunk!” Blaine called loudly, leaning further out his window so it echoed between the walls of their houses. Kurt glared at him, eyes shooting around furtively. If his dad happened to come home and find out he was  _drunk_. That was not something he wanted to deal with right now.

He brought the phone close to his mouth, his voice dropping. “I’m  _desperate_ ,” he emphasized. That’s why he was calling Blaine. Kurt was  _desperate_  and even if Blaine carried that over him for the rest of the year, at least there was that chance that he’d take Kurt up on the offer. A slim chance, but a chance either way.

A huff sounded over the phone and Blaine retreated slightly into his room. “Oh, well when you put it  _that_  way.” Kurt scoffed at him, rolling his eyes.

“You’re not offended, so don’t pretend to be.” Kurt had always known Blaine better than he’d let on, although he was sure the boy knew him pretty well, too. “My guess?” A grin played across Kurt’s face as he leaned invitingly over his windowsill. “You’re intrigued.”

“I am?” Blaine returned to his window, leaning on it and staring at Kurt across the way, eyebrows raised.

“Word is Sebastian dropped you.” Even from the distance, Kurt could see the way Blaine winced—as if watching him mope around for the last week hadn’t been any sort of hint. But there it was, verification written all across his unfortunately handsome face (unfortunate because it really was wasted on him).

“Yeah, well—”

“ _Yeah well_ , you have a tiny idea of how I feel,” Kurt spat bitterly, fingers clenching the sill at the thought of Finn and his stupid sexual fickleness. “Look, I know you don’t give a damn about Centennial… Or me, and that’s fine.” Even if it hurt. Kurt was good at pretending it didn’t hurt anymore that he’d lost one of his best friends.

“But starting Monday I’m going to be treated like the biggest loser ever at McKinley. The same girls who will be dishing out sympathy will be laughing behind my back. Some will try to set me up out of pity, but I’ll know that whenever I walk into a room and it’s suddenly gone quiet that they were talking about  _me_  and my monumental failure.” Kurt paused, surprised at the bitterness and desperation in his own voice. After working so hard to get where he was, he was suddenly going to lose all of it. He turned to look at Blaine fully, seeing that he was clearly not amused with Kurt’s dramatics. He sighed, long and low and broken, pulling the phone away so he was talking to Blaine now across the gap.

“We can save each other.” He paused. “From disgrace.” Did Blaine even care about that? Care about humiliation? He had no rung on the social ladder, he really didn’t have anything. Except his friends, and Sebastian. Kurt was betting on those needs.

“Each other?” Blaine asked incredulously, before pulling the phone away and following Kurt’s suit. “What’s in it for me?” He called. For a brief second, Kurt blanched, but it was easy to pull on his confident demeanor. He stood straighter, leaning on the windowsill and pulling the phone to his mouth again.

“If you have to ask, you’re not as smart as you think you are.” Kurt could practically see the wheels turning in Blaine’s head, and he grinned. This had to be a victory, right? He watched as Blaine leaned against his phone in thought, and sighed.

“You need to sleep on it. Get back to me.” Kurt stared at Blaine for a few moments, before hanging up the phone and dropping it unceremoniously out the window. He stumbled a way, remembering that he was, in fact,  _very_  drunk, and only remembered that he should probably shut his window after walking away from it.

The last thing Blaine saw was Kurt stripping out of his elaborate party ensemble in perfect sight of the window before the light turned off with what sounded like an alarming smashing sound. He sighed, running fingers through his curls, before shutting his own window and collapsing back onto his own bed. He had a lot to think about.

But first he needed to call Sebastian.


	3. Reflection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **05/03/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.

There’s a mirror hanging in their apartment right next to the door. The frame had once upon a time been gilded, but Kurt had lacquered over it with paint right after he declared that gilded mirrors were dated. Now, every time their apartment gets a make-over, the mirror gets one as well.

It’s the last thing either of them look at before they leave the apartment. A glance on the way out—checking hair for perfection, teeth for food, collars for wrinkles. Is it obvious that Kurt is sick? That Blaine didn’t sleep last night after fighting with Kurt? If Kurt makes sure his scarf hangs just so, will his hickey stay hidden from sight?

It’s a silly thing, the mirror, but it’s a subconscious part of their lives that neither of them really planned for.

Blaine is the one who starts using it for messages when they’ve reached that point in their lives where their schedules never sync together and they’re always, always missing each other.

  
                                                   
                         

Sometimes Kurt takes them with him. He places one on the test he aces, just like Blaine says, and leaves it on their kitchen counter for him to see. The sappier ones he keeps, pressed firmly together like it’s own little book of love inside the zippered pocket of his bag. Only one note stays on the mirror at all times, and Kurt sees it every time he goes to check his reflection.


	4. Introduction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **05/04/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.

"This is my boyfriend, Blaine."

"Have you met Blaine yet? He’s my boyfriend."

"This is Blaine. You know, my boyfriend."

"Remember that boyfriend I told you about? This is him. This is Blaine."

Kurt hasn’t used the word boyfriend this many times since they first started dating. Blaine remembers, because he used to say it just as much (if not more). But at this rate it’s getting a little ridiculous. He almost feels like he should get a name tag: “Hello, my name is Kurt’s Boyfriend Blaine." At least it would save Kurt the trouble.

After Blaine has met Kurt’s dormmate, the people on his floor, his RA, the guard at the front desk, and probably at least twenty other miscellaneous people in Kurt’s building, they return to Kurt’s room (someone in the hall catcalls—Blaine thinks her name is Angie).

It’s not like they hadn’t   _reacquainted_  themselves earlier. It’s been three weeks since Kurt left for New York and this is Blaine’s first visit, and he’d been all for sexiling Kurt’s dormmate Andrew for the entire weekend (which they’re still going to do anyways). But introductions had been a must and Blaine couldn’t have turned down Kurt if he’d wanted to (and he hadn’t—Kurt had been so excited).

Now it’s just them again, the sounds of New York on one side and the constant murmuring of college life on the other.

"So do you want to tell me what that was all about?" Blaine asks as Kurt tugs him by the hand to the bed.

"What what was about?" Kurt is suddenly distracted with the buttons on Blaine’s oxford.

"Kurt." Blaine laughs, grabbing the hands that are already halfway down his shirt and _wow_ , Blaine had forgotten how fast Kurt’s nimble fingers could work. “Most of the people I just met probably think Boyfriend is part of my name."

Kurt blushes, for just a moment, before he tugs his hands out of Blaine’s grip and continues his work. Not that Blaine is complaining.

"We’re in New York," Kurt says as way of explanation, pausing to look up at Blaine.

"Yes?" Blaine looks back at Kurt, confused as to where he’s going with this.

"We’re in New York.  _Together_." Now Kurt looks at him expectantly as if those are all the pieces Blaine needs.

"Yay?"

"Blaine!" Kurt laughs, grabbing Blaine’s arm and pulling him suddenly down to the bed until he’s sprawled on top of Kurt.

"I am in New York. With my boyfriend. My boyfriend who I can hold hands with and hug and kiss whenever I want."

Well, Kurt had been more affectionate since Blaine had arrived. But Blaine had chocked that up to their three weeks apart rather than the fact that they could. Because they  _could_  now. They  _can_.

"It’s not like they didn’t know I’m gay before you got here or anything, and I talk about you enough, but." Kurt traces his fingers over the revealed planes of Blaine’s chest, making him shudder.

"Kurt Hummel. Were you showing me off?" Blaine grins and Kurt blushes, nipping at Blaine’s collarbone in retaliation.  _Cheater_.

"Is that what I am now? Your trophy boyfriend? A pretty piece of arm candy?"

"Blaine?"

"Hmm?"

"Shut up." Kurt pulls him down into a kiss and okay, Blaine will  _definitely_  shut up.

"Come on. I think I need to introduce your clothes to my floor."


	5. Nature's Fury

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **05/06/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.

There are no flights. 

Blaine continues to stare at the board listing departures, watching as “delayed"s turn into “canceled"s. He’s hopeful that something,  _anything_ , will open up and he’ll miraculously grab a seat. But it’s hard to ignore the blizzard howling outside, seeing as it’s the reason every plane is grounded and he’s stranded in Pittsburgh on Christmas Eve.

Things could be worse. He sees husbands talking frantically into cell phones and there’s a pair of twin girls crying and fighting for dominance in their consoling mother’s lap. Then there are others like him. People who don’t particularly want to be stranded in an airport, but don’t feel the pressure of getting home in time for Christmas. Blaine knows what’s waiting for him at the end of his flight. His mother and father, their prim Christmas traditions, and excuses for why his brother has to stay in LA  _again_  this year. 

Blaine wishes he’d stayed in New York. 

"There’s nothing? Nothing at all?"

The voice is so clipped and shrill that it draws his attention. There are still people looking for flights even as the snow falls in flurries and the wind rattles the windows. Blaine watches, noting the man’s impeccable traveling clothes, styled hair, and the hard set of his jaw. Blaine is suddenly very self conscious of his traveling sweats. 

"A car then. There has to be a car I can rent."

A car? He wants to drive in  _this_? The agent is speaking much more quietly than the man had been, her voice a murmur of hushed apologies until the man turns on his designer boots and stalks away. 

Right towards where Blaine is sitting. He snaps his head back around, suddenly very interested in finding a book in his bag. He had brought a book, right?

His eyes can’t help but flick up as the man sits across from him, Marc Jacobs luggage tucked safely beside him as he crosses his legs and whips out a phone. Blaine can feel himself grinning, just a bit, as he hears the man mutter under his breath. Blaine is very glad he’s not an airport agent right at that moment. 

"Dad?"

Blaine feels a shot through his heart at how soft and vulnerable the man’s voice suddenly is. 

"No, everything’s canceled. They can’t even give me an estimate—yes, I  _know_  it’s nature and it doesn’t work on a schedule, dad. That doesn’t mean it’s any less annoying."

Blaine listens more intently than he should be, hand still buried in his bag and just sitting there. Blaine tries to imagine this man’s life for a moment. Maybe he’s coming from somewhere luxurious, like London or Paris. He probably does something amazing, like model, and Blaine imagines his face in fashion magazines and the lilt of his walk down a runway. He loves his father in a way Blaine always wanted to love his, but had never managed. Does he have a family of his own? A wife? Children? A husband, maybe? He’s young, younger than Blaine is, maybe. Maybe he prefers his freedom, lives through his work, has family tucked into a pocket of the States (LA? San Francisco?).

"No, no one will rent out a car now, and who knows how far I’d get in this weather. No! Don’t you dare. Stay there. I  _will_  call Carole."

Is Carole the wife? Blaine looks a bit more obviously than he’d like to, but the mans fingers are unadorned. 

"I know, I know. I’m sorry. It was stupid of me to wait so long. But I’ll hopefully be home in time for dinner." The man blinks fast and Blaine is hypnotized by the way his throat moves as he swallows. 

"Besides, who says we can’t celebrate Christmas a day later?" The tight smile on the man’s face is heart-breaking. “I love you, too, dad. Merry Christmas."

Blaine looks down instantly, cheeks heating. He has the urge to look around, wondering if anyone noticed him gawking at the attractive stranger, but he doesn’t. It’s probably better not to draw attention to himself. 

"Excuse me?"

 _Shit_. He totally knows that Blaine’s been staring at him. But Blaine looks up, it’s impossible not to, his hand jerking out of his carry on in his surprise. The maybe model in the peacock blue coat smiles the tiniest, sweetest smile when their eyes meet. Blaine has the sudden urge to drop and do something crazy, like propose marriage, but instead he focuses on keeping his mouth from falling too far open. 

"Hi, I hate to bother you, but do you have a phone charger I could borrow?" He holds up his iPhone and wiggles it back and forth. “My phone’s almost dead and I might commit mass murder if I’m stuck in an airport terminal for the next ten hours without it."

Blaine does have a charger, coiled pristinely in his laptop bag. But instead of pulling it out, like a sane, normal person, Blaine holds out his hand. 

"I’m Blaine."

The man stares at him for a moment, blue eyes (and  _wow_ , they are  _gorgeous_ ) filled with amusement. His lips turn into a smile, a fuller one, as he leans forward and takes Blaine’s hand with his long, pale, strong fingers. 

"Kurt."


	6. Exploration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **05/07/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.

Blaine should never wear clothes. He really,  _really_  shouldn’t.

Kurt would tell him so, too, if he wasn’t otherwise occupied. It’s much more difficult to speak while touching bare skin than he thought it would be.

It’s so new, all of it. Kurt’s never seen a topless boy before, not outside of magazines. There’s his own chest, of course, but he tries his best not to look, and he never looked up in the locker room. Eyes down, nearly closed, changing as fast as possible so that he could escape.

But now there’s Blaine. Beautiful, beautiful Blaine, whose back arches off the bed as Kurt runs his palms from the band of Blaine’s jeans up to his collarbones.

There’s so much skin, skin everywhere, and Kurt wants to touch all of it. He wants to know which spots make Blaine’s breath hitch, the places on Blaine’s body that make him groan in the way that makes Kurt hot all over. He wants to memorize the shape of Blaine’s arms, the dip between his collarbones, the curve of his waist, the angle of his hipbones. Kurt looks and looks, watching Blaine’s skin shudder as his nails drag through chest hair and feeling the way his stomach erratically contracts beneath his hands.

Kurt can’t wait to see what his mouth can do.

"Kurt," Blaine groans, hips twisting, hands scrambling against the sheets and lifting slightly before Kurt can push them back down. He moves up Blaine’s body until they’re face to face, feeling his own heart race at the arousal in Blaine’s eyes. Kurt leans in close, brushes his lips once, twice, three times fleeting against Blaine’s even as he tries to deepen it.

"Don’t move," he whispers, and then opens his mouth against the skin of Blaine’s neck.


	7. The True You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **05/08/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.
> 
> Reaction fic to 3.19, Promasaurus.

They drive in relative silence, Kurt twirling the top hat in his hands while Blaine drives. He keeps looking, small glances here and there, except one time Blaine catches him and sighs heavily.

"Are you going to keep looking at me like that?"

"Like what?" Kurt says almost instantly and he sees Blaine lips twitch up in a smile. The car pulls to a stop and—oh, they’re at Blaine’s house already.

"Like  _that_ _._ " Blaine cuts the engine and turns to look at Kurt, wrists resting on the steering wheel. “Is it the curls?" There’s a strain of worry in Blaine’s voice as he reaches up to touch his hair. “Because I thought you said—" Kurt reaches over and takes Blaine’s hand, pulling it away from his head.

"I meant everything that I said." Kurt gives Blaine a look, a different one, and he starts to open his mouth when Kurt presses a finger against his lips. “No. I meant it, Blaine. I’m not going to pretend I don’t like it when you’re tamed into a debonair 50s movie star, although I do think you could tone it down a little." Kurt cracks a smile and Blaine’s lips shift beneath his touch to mirror it.

"And honestly? With how weird you are about your hair, I expected much worse. But this?" Kurt pulls his hand away from Blaine’s mouth just to move it up and drag it through Blaine’s untamed curls. Blaine’s eyes flutter and he leans into the touch.

"This isn’t bad at all." Kurt blushes and Blaine knows what that means, knows that Kurt is thinking more than he’s letting on.

"Yeah?" His voice is hopeful, lilting at the end. No more gelling his hair straight out of showers or  _sleeping_  in it. Because Kurt  _likes_  it.

"Yeah." Kurt leans in then, kissing Blaine hesitantly, eyes nervous as he pulls away and Blaine makes a noise at the loss. “I certainly think it has it’s advantages."

Kurt’s hand tightens and Blaine’s eyes widen, because now he knows the look Kurt has been giving him all night. He swallows, staring at Kurt.

"Bedroom?"

It’s almost hilarious how quickly they get out of the car.


	8. Perfection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **05/09/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.

Their first New York apartment doesn’t have air conditioning.

It’s small and the furniture doesn’t match as well as Kurt would like. One of the back burners on the stove refuses to hold more than a minuscule flame and the oven doesn’t let them know when it’s preheated so they guess most of the time.

The window in their bedroom sticks after the halfway point and if Kurt tries to blow dry his hair while Blaine is using the toaster, the power shorts out.

It’s not perfect in anyway, and they spend more time complaining about it than either of them would like. Because Kurt can’t stand the water pressure in the shower and Blaine always runs into the end table that juts about an inch into the walkway.

It’s not perfect, but it’s theirs, and that’s perfect enough.

Their first New York apartment doesn’t have air conditioning. Blaine buys as many fans as he can find and Kurt suggests a back-up generator, because they’re going to survive the summer heat somehow.

Blaine’s the one who proposes the no-clothes policy. He doesn’t expect Kurt to strip down right then.

They sprawl naked across the bed, trading lazy kisses as four fans hum in the background and the heat settles heavy over their bodies. The neighbors upstairs apparently adopted a rhino and they can hear someone yelling in another language out of their half-open window.

Kurt mouths ‘I love you’ against Blaine’s bicep and Blaine kisses Kurt’s hairline.

Sometimes the complete perfection of one thing eclipses the imperfections of everything else.


	9. Forever and a Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **05/10/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.

Blaine doesn’t know where his shoes are.

He knows he took them off some point after his parents left but before people had started doing karaoke. He thinks they’re under a table somewhere, but there are  _a lot_ of tables and he doesn’t even want to begin looking.

"Where are your shoes?"

Kurt is unfortunately not drunk enough to forget that Blaine isn’t wearing shoes.

"I… Don’t know?" He looks hopefully up from where he’s sitting, almost as if Kurt will somehow have the answers.

But Kurt just sighs, reaching for Blaine’s hands and tugging him up.

"What did I marry into?" He shakes his head and Blaine laughs, leaning his forehead against Kurt’s shoulder.

"I don’t know, but it’s too late to back out now. You said _I do_  and everything."

Kurt tips his chin up and kisses him, long and slow and wonderful. Blaine’s smiling, eyes still closed, when they pull apart.

"Come on, Mr. Anderson-Hummel. Your husband wants to dance, even if you aren’t wearing any shoes." Blaine will never get over the sound of Kurt’s teasing laughter.

"I have the best husband  _ever._ ”

"Well, I don’t know. Mine’s pretty fantastic."


	10. Gunshot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **05/11/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.

_Crack._

The force of the gunshot is enough to send Kurt jolting backwards into Blaine.

The bullet is through the target faster than Kurt’s eyes can follow it, but he frowns immediately as it hits the open space above the shoulder.

"Shut up!" Kurt throws a look over his shoulder as Blaine laughs silently, his shoulders shaking with it. He scowls, pulling the headphones off and setting the gun down on the ledge.

"I hate you," he grumbles as Blaine continues to chuckle behind him, turning and crossing his arms.

"Sorry, sorry." But Blaine is smiling, so he’s not really sorry. “You did good for your first shot." Kurt levels him with an unamused gaze. “No, I’m serious. Most people don’t even hit the target."

Kurt turns to look at his shot again, preening slightly. He  _did_  almost hit the shoulder.

"So you box," Kurt steps to the side so Blaine fills the booth, stepping behind him and watching over his shoulders. “You can shoot a gun. Are you sure you’re not some type of secret agent?"

Blaine turns to look at him, bouncing slightly on his toes in his powder blue cardigan, cut-off grey pants, and a black bowtie that has  _helms_  on it. Well, he would certainly have his cover identity nailed.

Blaine snaps the headphones on and takes his stance. Kurt watches intently, jumping back as Blaine shoots once, twice, three times without any hesitance into the target’s head, heart, and groin.

Kurt’s mouth feels dry as he sees Blaine’s small smirk of satisfaction. Who knew guns could be so arousing.


	11. Never Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **05/12/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.

"I can’t  _believe_  you made me do this!" Kurt shrieks as the water laps around his waist.

"Woah, hey, this was  _your_  idea." Blaine is nearly fully submerged in the water, his hair dripping down the front of his face.

"It was a spur of the moment, impulsive  _suggestion_." Kurt crosses his arms, wading further in and shrieking again as a wave slams into his chest. “Oh god, I  _hate_  the ocean," he mutters under his breath.

Blaine watches him as he comes closer, lips hidden beneath the water and Kurt doesn’t understand how he can do it. The ocean is like the filthy bathtub of the  _world_  and he’s  _in it_. His displeasure must be pretty prominent on his face, despite the fact that it’s dark, because he hears Blaine swim closer and feels the warmth of his arm around his middle.

"We can get out. Technically, we did it. We’re skinny dipping." Blaine circles around him until they’re face to face, gesturing over Kurt’s shoulder to the beach. “Do you want to?"

Blaine is looking at him so earnestly that Kurt can’t lean in and kiss him, not surprised that Blaine’s lips taste the wrong kind of salty but shocked that he doesn’t find it completely revolting. When Kurt pulls away to look at him, Blaine’s eyes are so closed and Kurt takes a moment to admire the way the water clumps his eyelashes together.

"Kurt?" He asks softly, opening his eyes slowly. Kurt smiles, feeling that daring that had shot through him ten minutes ago during their walk down the beach.

"We’re already here," Kurt says, soft, the words brushing Blaine’s lips. He wraps his arms around Blaine’s neck and feels hands tighten on his hips as Blaine drags him closer and  _oh_.

"Never again, though."

Blaine kisses him and Kurt thinks,  _well, maybe a few more times._


	12. Separation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **05/13/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.
> 
> Based heavily on the lyrics from Jason Mraz's, "In Your Hands."

Kurt buys coffee on his way to his first day at NYADA. It’s from a Starbucks, because he hasn’t had time to find a place that  _isn’t_  Starbucks yet, and it’s okay.

It’s no Lima Bean.

Kurt wonders if maybe he needs a new coffee order.

Later that week he accidentally orders a medium drip with his mocha, and stares at the two cups in his hands a little helplessly. He takes a picture of it and sends it to Blaine with  **Guess I have someone on my mind**  tacked on at the bottom. He gives it to one of the homeless people he passes on the way to the subway.

His phone vibrates moments later, and Blaine has sent him a picture of two Lima Bean coffee cups.

 **You’re always on my mine**.

There’s this busker that always plays at the Q station by Central Park. Every time Kurt has taken the line (which isn’t often; he doesn’t have many reasons to be uptown), he’s been there with his guitar. He plays acoustic ballad versions of pop songs soothingly in the background, and Kurt always feels reluctant to get on the subway and leave.

One day, as he shuffles with the crowd of people onto the train, he hears:

"You think I’m pretty without any make-up on, you think I’m funny when I tell the punchline wrong, I know you get me so I let my walls come down."

Kurt nearly cries right in the middle of a packed subway car.

His dad calls him every Friday evening. It’s often enough that Kurt doesn’t miss him nearly as badly without it being  _too much_  and Kurt knows that his dad will always answer if he needs him.

"I’m glad school’s going great, Kurt, but what about you?"

Kurt swallows down everything he wants to say.  _I’m homesick. I miss you and Carole. I miss my bedroom. I miss Friday night dinners. I miss my friends. I miss Blaine I miss Blaine I miss Blaine._  He thinks of fingers laced together, kisses on the cheek, lips that taste like coffee.

"I’m fine," he forces, trying to sound as happy as possible. He doesn’t want his dad worrying about him.

Things start to settle more. He makes friends, easier than he’d anticipated. He talks to Blaine every day until either of them fall asleep and they Skype Sunday mornings when Blaine’s parents aren’t home and Kurt’s roommate has church.

But even with Blaine’s voice in his ear, his bed is empty except for him. He wakes up curled around pillows and feeling the ache in his chest from how lonely he feels, the kind of loneliness that school and friends can’t heal.

The first time Blaine can make it up for a weekend, they spend at least ten minutes holding each other at baggage claim. No one bats an eye.

Later, when they lay curled up in Kurt’s tiny bed, skin pressed against skin, Blaine holds Kurt tightly and murmurs soft  _I love you_ ’s and  _I’m here, I’m here, I’m here, it’s okay_ ’s.

Kurt hadn’t realized he’d started crying.

"Just a few more months and then we have Christmas, okay?"

Blaine shouldn’t be doing this. Blaine is the one who is still in Ohio. At least Kurt got New York. But he can’t stop crying now that he’s started.

"And then a few more months and I’ll be graduating, baby, and then we’ll be together, okay? Always together. I promise."

Kurt sobs and clings harder to Blaine, crying out every tear he’d held back since his first day in New York. And Blaine lets him, holding him and rubbing his back and kissing his forehead, his cheeks, his temple until Kurt runs out of tears.

He opens his mouth to say something, to apologize, when Blaine silences him with a soft but pressing kiss that Kurt instantly melts into.

 _What’s missing in my life is you_.


	13. First New Years in NYC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **05/13/12**.
> 
>  **green-suspenders prompted:** First New Year’s in NY together? :)

“Are you  _sure?_ ” Kurt wrings his hands nervously, glancing at the clock.

“I’m positive.”

“But it’s your first New Years in New York, Blaine, I don’t—”

Blaine presses his finger to Kurt’s lips, staring intently at him until Kurt’s shoulders relax.

“It’s yours, too,” Blaine says. “New York isn’t going anywhere. Times Square will be there next year. We get a better view of the ball on my TV anyways.” He ducks his head, trying to get Kurt to smile. “Plus, can you imagine how hard it would be to get all that confetti out of our hair?”

They both remember Kurt’s senior prom and cringe slightly.

“But—” Kurt starts again and Blaine’s finger comes right back to rest on the bow.

“But nothing. There is nothing I could get in Times Square that I can’t get right here.” Blaine looks at Kurt in that way that makes Kurt want to cry because someone  _loves him that much_ , but instead he kisses Blaine’s finger tenderly.

“Okay.”

Blaine’s face blooms into a smile and Kurt can’t stop himself, leaning in and awkwardly kissing Blaine’s grin until they both start laughing.

“It’s not midnight yet,” Blaine counters, teasingly.

“It is somewhere.” And Kurt kisses him again.


	14. 4 Minutes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **05/13/12**.
> 
>  **thattheatregleek prompted:** Blaine finds Kurt’s 4 Minutes video and likes it. He likes it a lot.

Kurt’s phone chirps beside him and he smiles, picking it up.

“Hi, I wasn’t expecting—”

“Kurt.” Blaine’s voice is low and very serious and Kurt sits up at his desk.

“What? What’s wrong?” A million scenarios race through Kurt’s mind. Is Blaine hurt? Did something happen to his parents?

“Why did you never show me this video?” His voice is still deathly quiet, raspy and sort of whispery in a way that makes Kurt’s spine tingle.

“Um, honey, I’m not followin—”

“The—you told me about the cheerleader thing, but you never said there was a video.” Blaine’s voice gets higher, desperate, and Kurt groans, feeling his face heat with embarrassment.

“Well, yeah, it’s embarrassing, I—wait, how did you find it?”

“Tina. She thought it might help with the distance. It was like a present. A  _really good present._ ”

Kurt sighs. He debates killing Tina.

“Get on Skype.”

Kurt furrows his eyebrows, already turning towards his laptop and booting up the program. “ _Okay_ ,” he says, a bit unsurely. It’s not that he doesn’t want to Skype with Blaine. Skyping is better than phone calls because he can see Blaine, no matter how jerky and pixelated the picture is. But he’s still not sure what’s going on.

The call comes in mere seconds after Kurt’s signed in and he hangs up his phone, feeling silly considering he’s about to see Blaine.

“Blaine, will you tell me what’s—”

Kurt’s voice drops off into a breathy  _oh_ , the hot flush on the back of his neck swiftly going downward. He is  _so glad_  he locked the door.


	15. Start

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **05/14/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.

When Blaine was sixteen, he was positive that nothing would ever fascinate him the way Kurt Hummel did. Nothing would ever be as beautiful, or as breathtaking. When he fell in love, he knew he would never love anyone more.

And now, ten years later, things haven’t changed.

Kurt is still gorgeous. His smile still makes Blaine wonder how he’s still breathing, and every morning when Kurt wakes him up with a kiss Blaine falls a little more in love.

Blaine knows he will never love Kurt any less. But when he holds his daughter for the first time, he knows his heart just grew to make room for the both of them.

It’s not like he hasn’t seen babies before. He held Jackson the day he was born, cooed over him and made eyes at Kurt because that was their  _future_.

But this was nothing like holding his nephew.

Daisy is tiny, so tiny. She’s a few weeks early and healthy. Her skin is rosy the way baby’s skin tends to be, her tiny lips ( _Kurt’s_  lips, Blaine can already tell) parted in the smallest ‘o.’ Her hands are so small that Blaine just wants to feel them wrap around his finger, but Daisy clutches the purple swaddle she’s wrapped in.

Blaine doesn’t even realize how his breath has synced with hers, fascinated with the way her tiny chest rises and falls from the expansion of her tiny lungs (not that Blaine can  _see_  her lungs, but he’s sure they’re tiny like the rest of her).

He knows Kurt’s there before a hand wraps around his waist and a chin hooks over his shoulder. He turns, his eyes soft and Kurt pecks his lips.

"She’s something else, isn’t she?" Kurt asks quietly, reaching down with his other hand to brush at her dark hair.

"She’s  _everything_  else," Blaine says reverently. Blaine knew he’d always wanted to be a father, but knowing something and being something are entirely different things. He feels like he was  _made_  for this.

"She has your nose," Kurt says and Blaine chuckles. Daisy is entirely Kurt and Blaine is anxious for the day when the stormy grey of Daisy’s eyes settles into a blue the way he hopes they will.

"Funny," Blaine quips back and Kurt just nuzzles into his neck.

"This is our family," Kurt whispers, his lips brushing against Blaine’s skin. Blaine’s heart feels like it might explode. He leans his head against Kurt’s, beginning to rock Daisy back and forth as Kurt sways with him.

"Yes. Yes it is."


	16. A Place to Belong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **05/15/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.

Blaine’s first dinner at the Hudson-Hummel household will always be, in his mind, an event he’ll remember.

It was after Kurt transferred to Dalton and at the near beginning of their friendship. Back when Kurt thought that Blaine had everything together and Blaine thought that Kurt was completely untouchable. But that is neither here nor there.

Blaine had never met Burt, or Carole, or Finn, and he’d been so nervous that he almost wore his Dalton uniform just to have something to hide behind. But he knew how Kurt dressed, how he’d clucked his tongue when Blaine showed up in his blazer and slacks when they did things together, so he didn’t.

So he ran his sweaty palms against the grain of his jeans instead, wondering if he should have brought something. He definitely should have brought something.

The problem was that Blaine had no idea what to expect. He knew then that Kurt was out to his family, his friends, his school—he had seemed so putout by the fact that it was never his choice to tell and it made Blaine sort of want to hit all the people who assumed without asking.

Blaine knew how his family dinners went after he came out, mainly for the fact that they didn’t happen at all. It hadn’t been an abrupt stop, but a slow and gradual fade out until one night Blaine was heating up canned ravioli in a bowl and wondering what had happened to his life.

His mom still tried. She made dinner as often as she was home, which wasn’t often enough. Blaine loved his mom and she’d been more understanding about, well, everything. His being gay was still something she was slowly accepting.

But Blaine didn’t see his dad much at all. He heard him leave in the morning sometimes, or get home at night. Sometimes Blaine knew he was holed up in his office with the door shut and Blaine knew what a shut door in that house meant. So he let it alone.

Dinner with Kurt’s family was something different entirely.

People never know what they’re missing until it’s spread right in front of them. Blaine had had family dinners, but after eating with the Hudson-Hummels it felt like a sham to even  _call_  them that.

They didn’t say grace. Finn started eating as soon as he sat down and Carole had scolded him, slapped at his hands until he stopped taking rolls from the basket. Kurt twittered around his dad, who looked amused at his son’s mother henning but also forlorn at the grilled chicken they were eating.

Blaine felt out of place, like he had been intruding on something precious. When Kurt had sat down beside him and flashed him an embarrassed smile, Blaine wanted to wipe it off his face.  _No_. He wanted to tell Kurt that it wasn’t embarrassing, that this was the way a family is supposed to be. But he just returns the smile.

The best part is that Blaine doesn’t feel left out. Carole and Burt both drag him into conversation, and Finn even becomes animated when football is mentioned. Blaine even pretends not to notice the shy, hopeful smile that Kurt tries to hide behind the dab of a napkin.

Things changed, of course. Blaine and Kurt changed. They went from individual units to a singular one; two people who could exist without the other but certainly preferred the alternative. Suddenly, it wasn’t strange if Blaine turned up at a Friday night dinner. In fact, it was expected.

When they weren’t eating with Kurt’s family, Kurt was at his house, cooking him dinner as they practiced at domesticity and Blaine fell even more in love.

It’s a night like that, Kurt tied up in Blaine’s mother’s apron and chopping vegetables for stir fry that Blaine wonders how his life was ever  _not_  this. How his life was ever without Burt, Carole, or Finn, who have slowly become his second family. How his life was ever  _not_  Kurt.

"What?"

Blaine starts, then just shakes his head and smiles softly.

"Nothing."  _I love you._

Kurt smiles.

_They say that home is where the heart is._


	17. Shadows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **05/16/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.

Central Park is nowhere near their little, cheap, rundown apartment.

It hadn’t been very close to either of their schools, either, but it’s  _Central Park._ Despite being residents of the city for a few years now, they still have that new-to-the-city feeling about Central Park.

It becomes a thing to try and head uptown at least every other weekend to simply walk through it. Blaine insists that this is just more of a reason for them to get a dog, but Kurt can’t even imagine sharing their home with another inch of  _Blaine_  much less an entirely other creature. So there’s no dog, and just them, walking hand-in-hand down the winding pathways.

Kurt prefers to go in the morning before they start the rest of their day. They walk and drink their coffee, talking about nothing and everything the way they always seem to.

But Blaine prefers to take the walks right as the sun is setting, when the shadows grow long and the branches of the trees in the winter look like grabbing hands. Sometimes they have to bundle up more but Blaine lists that as a plus. They walk closer together, arms linked.

"We look like one person," he whispers softly, nuzzling his nose against Kurt’s ear.

Their shadows mix together, four legs, two arms, two heads. A monster with impeccably good fashion sense and apparently a streak of kissing itself. Kurt likes to watch the way they move and how their shadows interact when Blaine spins him away in the strange dance they always seem to be in.

Blaine will wiggle his arms over his head and Kurt will hunch over in laughter and then they’ll gravitate towards each other again, the spaces disappearing. One person again.

Maybe Blaine has a point about evening walks.


	18. Picking Up the Pieces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **05/19/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.

Blaine stands there for much longer than he should.

He stands there from the moment Kurt leaves his arms, their fingers touching until Kurt moves too far away, until long after Kurt disappears through the crowds of people.

Kurt’s family is gone. Carole had given him a hug and Burt had clapped him on the shoulder, but they hadn’t dawdled. That was the smart thing, most likely.

There have been plenty of goodbyes in Blaine’s life. There was the last time he’d said goodbye to his grandmother before she passed away, or the way he used to wave goodbye to their house whenever they went on vacation. There was the time his pet fish had died and Cooper had helped him bury it in the backyard. There was the goodbye to Cooper when he left first for college, and then for California. There was the unceremonious goodbye to his old school. There was the difficult but sure goodbye to Dalton and the Warblers.

No goodbye has ever held a flame to this one.

Kurt had cried. He’d cried as he hugged his dad goodbye and his tears had wet Blaine’s neck as they clung together. Blaine didn’t cry, no matter how badly he’d wanted to. He’d kept a brave face, his smile sad and broken and something Kurt saw right through.

Their fingers had laced, Blaine’s arm extending until they were too far apart and Blaine couldn’t get close again.

"I love you!" Kurt had called over and over again over the din of travelers until security had swallowed him up.

Gone.

Blaine’s tears didn’t come all at once. It wasn’t like the shattering of a vase, quick and all at once, but like the chipping of paint, flakes and pieces falling away until the canvas is laid stained and lacking.

He cried steadily, standing still as the travelers broke around him in bursts and he continued not to move. He cried at the ache in his chest and the way it hurt to breathe. When he thought the tears were gone, he’d pause and he’d remember and he would start to cry again.

The phone in his back pocket vibrates and he reaches for it automatically. He ignores the way his eyes feel heavy, how he keeps sniffling and his cheeks are damp and chilled. Blaine rubs at his face with the sleeve of his cardigan, one swipe as if it will clear any remnants of sadness.

**I miss you already.**

Blaine smiles, his lips lifting into a smile and cracking his sadness.

He takes a deep breath, filling himself with air even as it aches. It’s time to turn around and pick himself up again.

**I miss you, too.**


	19. Everyday Magic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **05/21/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.

Blaine smells pancakes.

He groggily lifts his head from beneath a pillow, blinking against the sudden influx of light before rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

It’s been a long, tense week. It’s only midterms and Blaine already feels crushed beneath his workload. His stress has him wound up like a coil, walking stiffly and impeding on his ability to eat and sleep. He’s come home to an empty apartment more often than not, Kurt stretched thin between auditions and internships and his sudden submersion into fashion school.

It’s a lot, for both of them.

But Blaine feels rested now, more rested than he has since the beginning of the semester. The only thing that feels wrong right in that moment is the fact that the bed he’s sprawled in is empty.

Why does it smell like pancakes?

When he pads into their tiny, galley kitchen with bare feet, Kurt is there (because who else would it be?). His hair is still sleep mussed, dressed in boxers and one of Blaine’s t-shirts, toes skimming against the laminate as he hums to himself and pours ladles full of batter into the flat pan.

"Good morning," he says, looking up at Blaine with clear eyes that betray how long Kurt’s been up despite his just-out-of-bed appearance.

Blaine shuffles the next few feet, hands curling on Kurt’s hipbones and bare chest brushing against the soft, worn fabric of the t-shirt and the heat of Kurt’s back.

"Good morning." Blaine kisses Kurt on the cheek and Kurt smiles. “Pancakes?" Blaine asks, his voice still thick with sleep as he hooks his chin over Kurt’s shoulder.

"It felt like a pancakes kind of morning." Kurt flips one of the pancakes, perfectly golden brown and Blaine can feel his hunger spike through him. He  _loves_  pancakes, but cooking breakfast is generally something they don’t have time for. They hardly even keep any breakfast food in the apartment at all, aside from coffee and a box of poptarts that both Kurt and Blaine pretend not to want but eat from more frequently than either of them would ever admit.

"I love pancakes," Blaine hums happily, brushing his nose against the skin of Kurt’s neck and Kurt’s shoulders jump with a short, breathy laugh.

"I know."

Every Sunday morning should be a pancakes kind of morning.


	20. Heart Song

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **05/22/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.

Kurt takes the N line every morning on his way to class.

He takes the F when he needs to head to midtown and more often than not he’s on the R when he’s heading home every night.

He’s lived in New York for going on two years now and the subway is practically second nature to him now. But he has his schedule and he sticks to it.

One day, as he’s browsing his email and heading down to wait for the R train, there’s a busker there. It’s not something all too interesting. Kurt has seen plenty of buskers throughout his time in New York, has given some his spare change and rushed past others. It’s just how life in New York works.

Kurt only means to glance up for just a moment, except that once he’s looking he finds that he can’t stop. Most buskers are shaggy and unkempt in that artsy kind of way, although sometimes they are literally as dirty as they look. But this one looks like he belongs in a barbershop quartet rather than in a subway station with a guitar. His dark hair is slicked, his pants are cropped, and for  _god’s sake_  he’s wearing a  _bow tie_.

Kurt almost expects him to be crooning old fifties tunes, especially given that the overturned hat next to the busker’s wingtipped feet is a stylish  _fedora_. But rather than Frank Sinatra, he’s singing an acoustic version of Pink’s “Glitter in the Air." Kurt hadn’t really been a fan of the song when it was popular so many years ago, but now it hangs over him in an almost haunting way.

It’s beautiful.

“ _Have you ever been touched so gently you had to cry?_ ”

The R train comes and people flood past Kurt to make their way on. He doesn’t go with them. He’s glued to the ground where he stands, eyes fixed on the way the words of the song play out the emotions across the busker’s face.

The train pulls away, people streaming up and out of the subway station until it’s just Kurt and this stranger. He’s still singing, even without a real audience, eyes closed to the world and Kurt doesn’t even know he’s walking closer until he’s right there.

“ _The breath before the kiss, and the fear before the flames. Have you ever felt this way?_ ”

It almost startles Kurt when the other man’s eyes fly open, a brown color that is washed out by the lighting. He smiles at Kurt as he sings and Kurt finds himself smiling back, fingers already fumbling in his bag to find his wallet.

There’s almost a sense of disappointment when the man closes his eyes again, but Kurt finds he enjoys watching him while he sings. His faces are borderline ridiculous, but they’re also raw in a way Kurt doesn’t see on many musicians. No one wants to sing and look ugly (him included), but this guy doesn’t seem to care what he looks like as long as he sings with all of his heart.

The notion itself tugs at Kurt’s.

“ _Have you ever wished for an endless night?_ ”

 _Ah!_  Kurt pulls his wallet out of his bag, stilling for a moment as he realizes he has no idea how much money to give this guy. He normally keeps it small, and this busker in particular doesn’t seem like he’s going to go hungry any time soon. Yet…

Kurt doesn’t know how to put a price on what he’s feeling. He’s never purposefully missed a train to hear the end of a song before, has never been so drawn in and wrung out by one before.

When he looks up again, his eyes lock with the busker’s again.

“ _Will it ever get better than tonight?_ ”

The song ends simply. There’s no sudden embellishment, just the standstill of the strings and the manual fade out of his voice. Kurt suddenly realizes he’s just standing there, fingers stuck in his wallet, no doubt gaping at someone he doesn’t even know.

"Thank you."

And Kurt had thought his  _singing_  voice had been good,  _oh dear god._

"I’m Kurt," he says suddenly, holding out his hand, and the busker laughs, surprised. He shifts his guitar around before grasping Kurt’s hand solidly in his, and Kurt can feel the way his guitar picked fingers rub against the back of Kurt’s hand.

"Blaine," the busker smiles, and Kurt resists the urge to parrot the name back at him.

He wants to say something. Anything. Give this man his entire wallet or something ridiculous like that.

"Do you like coffee?" He asks instead, instantly wanting to kick himself in the head. But Blaine just smiles again, leaning down to grab his hat and dust it off.

"Is there anyone in this city who doesn’t?" Blaine jokes back, still grinning, and Kurt feels weirdly fluttery and light.

"Point," Kurt ducks his head, taking a deep breath. “Do you want to get coffee with me?"

He’s no good at this, whatever  _this_  is. Gay men in New York are much harder to discern than he would have thought and he’s embarrassed himself countless times before. But coffee can be harmless. If Blaine is boob-inclined than it’s a good start at friendship, anyways.

Blaine meets his gaze, holding it, and his smile is soft, just a quirk of lips that is warmed by the intensity behind his eyes.

"That sounds great, actually." He swings his guitar behind his back and dumps the contents of his hat into a pocket before depositing it on his head. He moves beside Kurt, resting a hand on Kurt’s lower back and looking over at him. “Lead the way."

It’s a good start to  _something_ , Kurt’s sure of that.


	21. Seeking Solace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **05/23/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.

"So did you do your whole ceremonial letter opening with Finn and Rachel? I can’t believe she told you I wasn’t allowed to—"

"Blaine."

Kurt’s voice breaks and he can hear the way Blaine’s breath seems to stop, even through the phone. He grips his phone harder, waiting, unable to say anything else, listening to the silence on the other end.

"Where are you?" Blaine asks, and Kurt can hear him moving. Hears the sound of doors closing and keys jingling together.

Kurt’s mouth moves, trying to form words, but the idea of trying to say anything only makes his throat close up.

"Kurt?"

He hears the heavy thunk of the front door, and it’s only a few moments later before there’s a tap at his car window. Blaine’s there, eyebrows knit together in worry, and Kurt watches his face fall as their eyes meet.

The door is open and Kurt wouldn’t be able to tell you who did it, only that Blaine is gathering Kurt up into his arms and running open palms up his back.

Kurt doesn’t have to say anything, doesn’t have to tell Blaine what happened.

_I didn’t get in. I didn’t get in. I didn’t get in and Rachel did._

Kurt isn’t crying the way he thought he would, the tears leaking out of his eyes rather than raking through him the way he’s cried in the past. It’s the sharp kind of pain that insists on hitting him slowly, again and again. Sobbing would get it out too fast.

"Come on, lets go inside." Blaine’s voice is low and quiet. It’s steady in every way that Kurt is not in that moment and he wants to cling to it. Somehow he walks, looped around Blaine, until they’re in Blaine’s room and he’s being urged into his boyfriend’s lap.

He couldn’t go home, not yet. Not when his dad is there, still amped from graduation the day before. Not with Finn needing them now that his plan has also sit a standstill. But mostly, Kurt doesn’t want to see the look on his father’s face when he tells him. Not yet.

Kurt doesn’t say anything, but Blaine doesn’t say anything either. They don’t need to. Because Kurt doesn’t know where to start and he knows, and Blaine knows, that there’s nothing Blaine can say right now to fix it. Kurt just needs him to be there.

So Blaine is there.

He holds Kurt and kisses his temple and rubs his back, humming something that Kurt doesn’t recognize and doesn’t try to.

Kurt closes his eyes and breathes.


	22. Knowing How

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **05/24/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.

"You have literally never baked a day in your life, have you?"

Kurt is standing across the kitchen island, hands braced against the edge of the granite countertops, watching Blaine expectantly.

It’s a fair deduction, because as much as Blaine looks the part in his purple apron and rolled up sleeves, he has absolutely no idea what to do with the ingredients laid before him.

"Hey, I can cook," Blaine pouts back. And, yeah, he can’t cook as well as  _Kurt_ , but he isn’t so hopeless at it that he’d  _die_  living on his own. He’d probably get really sick of grilled cheese sandwiches, though.

"Cooking is not baking, honey." Kurt looks at him as if he’s some sort of adorable, lost animal and it’s just making Blaine feel sulkier. Shaking his head, Kurt finishes tying the strings of his floral print apron and comes to stand beside Blaine.

"It’s not?" Blaine knows that baking has more to do with desserts and stuff, but is it really  _that different_  from cooking?

Kurt just keeps shaking his head in that fond way, and if he starts cooing Blaine is going to throw something at him. Like a dish towel.

"Anyways, this is a good thing to start with. Cookies aren’t hard. So, how about you do the wet ingredients in this bowl, and I’ll—"

"We need two bowls?"

"Yes."

"Isn’t that kind of excessive?"

Kurt no longer seems endeared to Blaine’s cluelessness, and instead pushes one of the brightly colored mixing bowls towards Blaine.

"No. Now just follow the instructions in the recipe. All the measuring implements and ingredients we need are right here."

Well, that sounds easy enough. It’s just like Kurt said. Cookies aren’t hard. Blaine can so totally do this.

_Cut the butter—_

"Kurt? What does it mean when it tells me to cut the butter into the sugar? Should I make the stick smaller?"

Kurt’s lips are folded as he turns from measuring the flour, pressed in a way that Blaine knows means he’s keeping something back. In all honesty, Blaine had been surprised when Kurt had suggested they bake together. It’s not really a secret how much of a Nazi Kurt is in the kitchen; Blaine’s been witness to it countless times. But Kurt had seemed so happy at the prospect of it.

_"And maybe next weekend you can teach me how to box!"_

Blaine wasn’t going to argue with that logic.

Instead, Kurt picks up something that looks kind of scary. Blaine’s seen it in their kitchen drawers before, but it wasn’t something he’d ever used or really questioned the existence of. And now Kurt wants him to use it.

"It’s a pastry blender," Kurt explains, moving beside Blaine and abandoning the cup full of flour. “Here, measure the sugar—" Blaine does and  _that_  part isn’t so hard, "—and now put the butter in." That part is kind of fun, and it leaves Blaine’s finger tips semi-slick. Kurt moves around his back, placing the handle of the  _pastry blender_  in Blaine’s right hand and then folding his own hand over the back of it.

"This part is actually fun," Kurt hums, his voice brushing gently against Blaine’s ear and making him shudder slightly. They move in a motion that reminds Blaine of digging holes with a shovel, but he’s watching intently as the blades move easily through the softened butter and begin to clump up the sugar. It’s kind of fascinating.

"See?"

Blaine can hear Kurt’s smile without having to look. Kurt  _loves_  baking, and Blaine forgot how much he enjoys watching Kurt do something he loves.

"Mmhmm." Blaine turns his head, pursing his lips until Kurt laughs, leaning forward and kissing him softly.

"Now get back to work, Anderson." Kurt brushes their noses together before slipping away, leaving Blaine to his butter-and-sugar concoction. Blaine starts to hum and Kurt picks up on the tune quickly, both of them harmonizing at different times as Kurt occasionally bumps his hip against Blaine’s.

This really isn’t that hard.

"Wait, Kurt. What does it mean by pack the brown sugar? Pack it where?"


	23. Excuses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **05/25/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.

**Blaine (4:03PM):**  
          Still in rehearsal. OK if I call 1 hour later?

 **Kurt (4:04PM):**  
          Talk to you then. <3

*

**"Hi, you’ve reached Blaine. I’m not available right now, but leave me a message and I’ll be sure to get back to you as soon as I can."**

           _BEEP_

"Hi honey. I know we had a Skype date planned for tonight, but tonight also turns out to be the only time my History group can get together. Let me know if any time tomorrow works for you, okay? I love you."

*

"I just think that the outfit looks unflattering on her. It’s a  _cover_ , Blaine. It’s what sells the magazine."

"Well I personally think the navy looks lovely with her skin tone and… Kurt, can you hold on? Other line."

"Okay, but this isn’t over."

…

"Hi, sorry about that. It was Tina, I—Her and Mike got in a fight and she asked if I could come over. Is that okay?"

"You don’t have to  _ask_ , Blaine, don’t be ridiculous. Of course it’s okay. Give Tina my love and fill me in later?"

"Of course. I love you."

"Love you, too."

*

           **You have three new messages. Message one.**

"Kurt? It’s Blaine. I can’t remember what you said you were doing tonight, but if you get this, could you call me back? Thanks. I love you."

           **Message two.**

"Hi, it’s me again. It’s just… It’s been around an hour now and I usually hear back from you by now. You know how I get. Just. Call me as soon as you can, okay? I love you."

           **Message three.**

"You’re not answering my texts either, and just… I’m really worried, Kurt. Please, please get back to me. I miss you. I love you. Call me back, please."

*

 **Kurt (4:30PM):**  
          I’m home early! Skype? ;)

 **Blaine (4:31PM):**  
          I can’t.

 **Kurt (4:31PM):**  
          What?

 **Blaine (4:32PM):**  
          My parents are having a dinner here tonight.

 **Kurt (4:34PM):**  
          So we can’t skype at all?

 **Kurt (4:37PM):**  
          Blaine?

 **Blaine (4:40PM):**  
          I’m sorry, I have to go.

*

"So I can’t visit this weekend?"

"It’s not like I don’t  _want_  you to visit, Blaine. But my professor said that if I wanted to get a passing grade on this paper, I need to do more research and it’s due next Monday."

"You could still work with me there."

“ _Blaine_."

"Kurt, I haven’t seen you in  _two_  months."

"Next weekend?  _Please_. I’ll pay whatever the airline charges you to move your tickets, I’ll even call them. I really—I  _miss_  you, but I can’t fail this paper, Blaine, I can’t—"

"Shh, shh. Calm down. I just… This is hard. I’ll take care of the tickets and everything. But I’m skipping school Friday and Monday."

"Way to turn me into a bad influence."

"The absolute worst."

*

"But… You can’t get me from the airport?"

"I want to, baby, I do, but my parents—"

"It’s  _always_  your parents, Blaine. They’re doing it on purpose."

“ _Kurt_ —"

"Your dad hates me. I’m pretty sure everyone in Ohio knows that."

"Kurt, I’m sorr—"

"Just. I’ll see you eventually, I guess."

           _CLICK_

*

"Blaine?"

Kurt blinks in surprise, nearly dropping his carry-on when he sees his boyfriend as he approaches the baggage claim. Not his dad, as he’d been expecting, but  _Blaine_.

Blaine just smiles, tilting his head to the side kind of bashfully as Kurt stops right in front of him. It’s not the full out running reunion Kurt had originally imagined. They don’t even hug.

"I thought you couldn’t pick me up from the airport."

They hadn’t spoken since then.

"Yeah, I… Was lying, actually. I wanted it to be a surprise." Blaine looks down and Kurt feels guilt fall like a stone into his stomach. He mouths an “o," blinking back his shame and tears and looking away.

"Hey, no, it’s okay. You had every right to be mad, just… It’s okay, alright? I’m not upset." Blaine ducks to catch Kurt’s eye, smiling. “And hey, we might not be in New York, but if you don’t hug me in the next thirty seconds, I’m pretty sure I’m going to die."

Kurt chokes out a laugh and quickly throws his arms around Blaine’s neck, burying his face deep in his neck as Blaine’s hands press possessively into Kurt’s back.

"Welcome home," Blaine whispers, kissing his hair.


	24. A Stack of Post-It Notes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **06/03/12**.
> 
>  **Anonymous prompted:** Something- preferably fluffy and cute- relating to Post-It notes.
> 
> A companion to [Reflection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/886229/chapters/1708385).

There’s a small stack of Post-It notes that Kurt keeps in the zip pocket of his school bag. It looks like a stack of ordinary Post-Its, albeit one where they alternate colors in a totally unpredictable pattern, and if someone ever catches sight of it that’s exactly what he tells them it is.

Except that, really, it’s so much more than that.

After the first few, which are blank and therefore incredibly boring, there’s this:

                   

Which is promptly followed by more messages, notes, and drawings, all in Blaine’s scrawl.

 

                                 

                    

   

                                                     

               

                                                                 

And at the very end, behind every single doodled heart and silly joke and words of encouragement and love is one solitary note that is different from all the rest.


	25. Hair Washing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **06/06/12**.
> 
>  **Anonymous prompted:** Kurt washes Blaine’s hair because he is bored.

"Mmmmm."

"Blaine, stop making those noises."

"I can’t help it, your fingers feel so  _good._ ”

Kurt rolls his eyes fondly, shuffling on his knees beside the tub so he can position his arms more comfortably.

"And to think I had to convince you to let me do this."

"Mmm, forgot." Blaine angles his head towards Kurt’s hands, sighing in contentment as they work along his scalp. “How are you so  _good_  at this?" He groans, his head falling backwards a bit. Kurt tsks, tilting it forward before it hits the wall tiles.

"It always feels good to have your hair washed, Blaine."

Blaine opens one of his eyes, smiling lazily.

"Is that why you like it so much when I wash your hair?"

Kurt lifts his chin defiantly, mouth pressed tightly shut, moving his fingers until Blaine is moaning again. Kurt feels the wet curl of fingers around his wrist and blinks in surprise before smiling. Blaine smiles back at him before kissing slowly at the inside of Kurt’s wrist.

"You should be in here with me," he murmurs against Kurt’s skin.

"Yes, because then we definitely would have washed your hair," Kurt teases, voice breathier than it had been moments before.

"You said you were  _bored_. I don’t see why sex can’t be a solution to boredom."

"Your powers of seduction will never cease to astound me, Blaine Anderson-Hummel."


	26. How To Get Your Boyfriend To Go Camping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **06/09/12**.
> 
>  **green-suspenders prompted:** Blaine dragging Kurt to go camping :)

"No."

Blaine tilts his head down and looks up through his eyelashes.

"Please?"

"Blaine, I said  _no_."

Blaine juts out his lower lip.

"Oh for the love of—"

“ _Please_ , Kurt? For  _me?_ ”

Kurt attempts to shift away from where he’s seated on the bed, but Blaine reaches out quickly to grasp his arm.

"You are not using the face on me, Blaine Anderson." Kurt tugs his arm from Blaine’s grip, only to find himself flat on his back and pinned to the bed moments later. He looks up at Blaine in surprise, all traces of the puppy-dog pout having vanished.

"Well then, I’ll just have to persuade you otherwise." Blaine leans in close, until his lips are brushing against Kurt’s ear. “Fresh air," he says, low and seductively, and Kurt shivers at the sensation of Blaine’s hot breath against his skin. “The sound of bubbling brooks, the scent of sunscreen…"

"Dirt. Bugs. Stepping on rocks," Kurt babbles, as if to counteract everything Blaine is saying.

"Watching the sunset over the mountains." Blaine moves lower, speaking against Kurt’s neck before kissing it gently. Kurt’s breath hitches.

"Um." Kurt blinks rapidly, trying to remember how to make a compulsive argument. “Pitching tents."

"Lying on our backs and watching the stars come out." Blaine runs his mouth and tongue down Kurt’s throat until he reaches the spot where it meets his shoulder. “Campfires." He nips softly at Kurt’s skin.

"Hiking boo—hnnnng," Kurt groans as Blaine’s tongue soothes over the bite.

"S’mores." Blaine pushes the collar of Kurt’s shirt aside, lowering his mouth over the same spot and sucking a few times. Kurt gasps needfully when Blaine pulls away and blows against the beginnings of a mark. “Sharing a sleeping bag."

Kurt grabs at Blaine’s face, pulling him up until their mouths are crashing together.

Needless to say, they end up going camping. 


	27. Pocketwatch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **06/10/12**.
> 
>  **Anonymous prompted:** Blaine's pocketwatch?

It had been a birthday gift. Blaine’s grandfather had given it to him on his tenth birthday. “You’re a young man now," he’d said, clipping the watch to Blaine’s belt loop. “And all fine young men carry pocketwatches."

Blaine had spent the next few years carrying the pocketwatch with him wherever he went. It took him awhile to understand that the letters were actually numbers ("Roman numerals," his mother had said) and that he could put a picture on the inside. That first year it had been the White Ranger, and at one point it had been his pet dog, Scruff. Aladdin also spent a few glorious months on the inside of Blaine’s pocketwatch.

When he was thirteen, the picture changed to Orlando Bloom and suddenly things were different.

It was Joseph Gordan-Levitt the night of the dance, where Blaine had saved it from getting crushed under the heel of someone’s shoe by protecting it with his hand. After that, he stopped putting pictures in it.

On his first day at Dalton, he slipped a piece of paper into the spot with the word  _courage_  written on it; it stayed there until Blaine stopped flinching in the hallways.

It said  _sing!_  the day he auditioned for and joined the Warblers.

It said  _one day_  when he went home for the summer and suffered through awkward dinners with his father.

The day he was stopped on the staircase by a beautiful boy, it said  _take a chance_. So Blaine grabbed the boy’s hand and never looked back.

*

 _Take a chance_  sits in Blaine’s pocketwatch until a week after he starts dating Kurt, who runs his fingers over the letters as Blaine mumbles out the story with averted eyes and far too much blushing for his taste. Kurt kisses him afterwards, tears a corner from his notebook, and writes  _thinking of you -K_.

The day Kurt transfers back to McKinley, Blaine opens his pocketwatch to  _I miss you ❤_. He holds it close to his chest and stairs at the ceiling and doesn’t cry.

It’s at the beginning of the summer when they’re sitting on Kurt’s bed, cutting a picture out of a photo strip to fit into the watch. Blaine’s making a face and Kurt is kissing his cheek and Blaine can’t look at it without smiling.

 _I love you,_  Kurt writes on the back.  _I love you, too,_  Blaine writes beneath it, and they can’t stop giggling as they kiss.

That one stays for awhile, until right before Kurt leaves for New York. Blaine doesn’t expect it, when they’re curled around one another, for Kurt to dangle the watch in front of his face. The picture is them of their foreheads pressed together, lips almost touching, and Blaine can remember the moment but not the picture itself. Kurt holds up a pen.

 _I will love you always_ , he writes. Blaine smiles and blinks back tears and adds, _and forever_.

When they get in their big fight Kurt’s senior year of college, when he ends up living with Rachel for a week and Blaine doesn’t leave the apartment or shower for four days, his pocketwatch stops ticking. It’s just a reminder of Blaine’s broken heart, so he wraps it in a kitchen towel and sticks it in his desk drawer.

They don’t talk about it.

Kurt finds it when they’re moving, the picture worn and discolored and the words faded on the back. “It’s broken," Blaine says, and that’s the end of it.

It’s in a box with a bow on Christmas morning, ticking and shined and filled with a new picture. Blaine cries.

It’s every day then, every moment a stranger asks for the time or Blaine looks purely out of routine. And he sees it there, that old photostrip picture from their first summer together, goofy and smiling and kissing and forever young together.


	28. Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **06/10/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.

Kurt and Blaine have been married for one year when they decide to let go of their first apartment in favor of something bigger.

It’s a process that isn’t nearly as long as their first search, but still just as tedious. Kurt is by far more excited about moving than Blaine; he books apartment viewings with their realtor by the dozens, their weekend consumed by trekking to probably every available rental space in Manhattan. Their budget is larger, now that they’re out of school and working jobs and not paying for a wedding, and it’s time to leave their college apartment behind.

Blaine understand that. No, really, he  _gets_  it.

But that doesn’t stop the fact that he’s nostalgic.

It starts in the kitchen, when they’re wrapping up dishes and stowing them in boxes, and Kurt pauses and furrows his eyebrows.

"Why do we only have seven of these plates?" He holds one up. It’s robin egg blue and Blaine is pretty sure they bought the set at Target, but they’re still his favorite.

He looks down at the mug he’s wrapping in newspaper, not meeting Kurt’s eyes. “Those were the plates we were eating dinner off of the night of The Fight." Blaine glances up and sees recognition register in Kurt’s eyes. “You threw one at me."

They’re silent until Kurt’s hand folds over Blaine’s.

"I always liked the number seven better, anyways."

Blaine laughs.

It’s the first thing, but it’s not the last. Despite being a bad memory, it’s a memory, and it just triggers the rest of them.

"Remember when we decided to move the couch up ourselves?" Blaine murmurs into Kurt’s ear as they cuddle on said couch, watching  _You’ve Got Mail_.

"I remember you complaining about your back for a  _week_  afterwards like some old man," Kurt says in reply, and Blaine jabs him in the ribs in retaliation—Kurt squawks indignantly.

"Really, did Friends teach us anything?" Blaine grins as he nuzzles into Kurt’s hair.

"Yes. Pivoting really  _doesn’t_  do anything."

When Blaine comes out of their bathroom, wrapped in a towel and shivering, Kurt immediately goes to wrap him in a blanket.

"The water switch on you again?" He asks, his arms winding around Blaine as well.

"Our new shower won’t suddenly turn ice cold," Blaine says sadly, and Kurt pulls back with an incredulous look on his face.

"Blaine, honey, that’s a good thing."

 _Maybe_ , Blaine thinks, petulantly (even though he knows it really  _is_  a good thing).

Blaine even gets emotional over the side table he always hits his hip against.

"Blaine, it’s coming with us," Kurt says, exasperated, as Blaine pets the wood fondly.

"Yeah, but our new apartment is actually spacious. I’ll probably never hit my hip against it again!"

"I married a crazy person."

Eventually, even being in a room makes Blaine start listing memories that happened there.

"Remember when I almost set the kitchen on fire baking you cookies?"

"Remember how this was the first toilet I threw up in after my twenty-first birthday?"

"Remember that one time we woke up naked in the hallway and had no idea how we got there?"

"Kurt, this is where we built the kitchen table!"

"Kurt, this is where you taught me how to waltz!"

"Kurt, this is where that one pigeon tried to get in!"

"Kurt, this is the first wall we had sex against!"

"Blaine!"

Eventually, the boxes were packed and taken away, the furniture broken down and placed into moving stacks, and Kurt and Blaine stood in an empty apartment. Blaine laid down in the middle of what was once their living room, but was now nothing but laminate floors and whitewashed walls.

Kurt moved down beside him, shoulders touching, and they stared up at the ceiling.

"This is the place where we got engaged," Blaine says suddenly, quietly, and Kurt grasps his hand. He doesn’t say anything.

They move. They unpack. Kurt pokes fun at everything until Blaine cracks a smile and soon enough, things fall back into ease.

Their first morning, Blaine hits that fucking end table walking towards the kitchen, grumbling to himself and limping a foot before pausing. Because the side table is quite obviously out of place.

Kurt wakes up to Blaine bounding on the bed and kissing him square on the mouth.

"Good morning to you, too?" Kurt laughs through his grogginess, and Blaine cuddles close to him.

Memories are memories, and that apartment will always be their first.

But home is where Kurt is.


	29. Shattered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **06/14/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.

"If there’s something you want to say, say it."

Blaine looks up from his diligent game of chase-the-tomato-around-on-the-plate-with-your-fork to meet Kurt’s look, and then glances away sheepishly. He takes a deep breath and then sets his fork down, clasping his hands together on the table.

"I just… Wanted to mention that the deadline for that internship is coming up."

Kurt’s annoyed albeit slightly curious expression turns suddenly steely. He goes back to his own salad quite violently.

"Yes, it is."

"I was just wondering—"

"Blaine. We are not having this discussion  _again_."

The tension is palpable, but Blaine swallows his reservations. The deadline is in two days, he doesn’t have anymore time to stop himself from pushing the subject.

"Kurt, I’m serious."

"And so am I. My decision hasn’t changed."

"I just… Italy is a  _huge_  opportunity, Kurt." Blaine makes to reach across the table to take Kurt’s hand, but stops. “To spend two years in Milan, learning all of the things you could learn there—"

"All things I can learn  _here_ ," Kurt presses. “Blaine, I told you. I want to do the program in New York. That was my informed decision."

"I can’t exactly believe it was a completely unbiased decision, Kurt."

"I don’t think  _anything_  is completely unbiased. Does the fact that you live in New York make the idea of staying here more appealing? Yes, it does. You know that. But it’s not the only reason—"

"Kurt, everything you can learn here you can learn there—"

"Exactly!"

"No, my point is that it’s Italy, Kurt. Milan. Do you know what that will look like when you’re trying to get a job in a few years?"

"In case it escaped your notice, Blaine, New York is a fashion capital, too."

"And chances are a lot of your competitors will be from here. I just think it’s an option you should thoroughly consider, from every angle."

"I have! It’s not enough that I decided on the New York one right away, no. I listened to you, I looked into every single option I had, and I still chose New York, Blaine."

"I just don’t want to be responsible for holding you back!"

At this point, Blaine is standing, hands braced on the table as he stares at Kurt. Kurt stares back at him, eyebrows furrowed in disbelief.

"Is that what all of this has been about? You feeling guilty for something that isn’t even happening?"

Blaine rubs at his eyes in frustration.

"Do you remember how you wanted to study abroad last year? Go to France? And you didn’t, Kurt. You didn’t because that would have meant six months away and the idea _killed_  me—"

"It killed both of us—"

"—and now I just feel like it’s my fault, that I—"

"You didn’t ask me to stay!"

"I might as well have!"

Kurt stands up, flattening his hands against the table cloth and pushing away folds.

"So what is this, Blaine? You feel guilty for something that happened almost two years ago, so now you’re pushing me away?"

"Kurt, that’s not—"

"You’re telling me to go? To fly away? To explore the world?"

"That’s what I want for you, but I don’t mean it like—"

"You want me to go and explore my potential. Without you."

"No, no, I’m not suggesting that—"

"So you’re suggesting that we go into a long distance relationship? For two years? Blaine, do you even  _remember_  the hell my freshman year was?"

"Of _course_  I remember, I was there!"

"That wasn’t even a year and I was close enough that we could see each other frequently. You can’t exactly charter jets across the Atlantic during your senior year of college!"

"We could, we could do it, we just—"

"Just what? It was going to be crazy enough even with both of us in New York. We hardly see each other as it is and we live together. So now you want to put an  _ocean_ between us?"

"Would you stop putting words in my mouth?"

"So you  _don’t_  want to?"

"No, I didn’t say  _that_ , either."

"So then what do you want Blaine? Excuse me for being a little confused here."

"I want you to be happy!"

Silence falls between them again, Blaine’s chest heaving as he faces the wall and then turns back to Kurt again.

"That is all I ever want for you, Kurt. I don’t want you to look back on this in a couple of years and regret your decision."

"Blaine, I  _am_  happy. I don’t see why you don’t understand that. I love New York, I love you, my entire life is here and I want to continue building it."

"How do you know there isn’t something better for you out there?"

"How could you know that there is?"

"I just, we’ve been together since high school, Kurt, and I—"

"No, no, we are  _not_  doing this. Blaine, I love you, only you, it will only  _ever_  be you."

"You don’t know that."

“ ** _I do know that!_** ”

Blaine draws back, startled by Kurt’s outburst.

"How many times do I have to tell you that you’re the love of my life before you believe me? What do I have to do to prove it to you?"

"Kurt. You don’t have to prove anything."

"Apparently I do! So what is this Blaine, a test?"

"That’s ridiculo—"

"Am I supposed to choose Italy and when I come back in two years, still choose you? Is that it?"

"Kurt—"

"Because I thought choosing New York and choosing you and being happy, no,  _over-fucking-joyed_  with that decision would be enough for you. But apparently how I feel about the program itself doesn’t matter, because obviously staying in New York is limiting my future!"

"Kurt, would you just—"

"And you obviously think that me staying with you is somehow bad for my happiness, because I’m obviously  _so_  unhappy! But maybe this isn’t about me, maybe this is about _you_ , Blaine."

“ _Excuse me?_ ”

"Maybe  _you’re_  the one who’s unhappy." Kurt’s voice drops quiet and his face seems to shatter at the idea of it. “Maybe this whole me going to Italy thing is for you, too. Maybe being with me is holding  _you_  back."

“ _Kurt_ , no, of course it isn’t, how could you think—"

"You think it about me! How is this any different?"

Silence again. They stare at one another.

"Nothing is ever going to be enough, is it?" Kurt’s voice breaks, and Blaine closes his eyes.

"Don’t say that."

"You can pretend like this is about me all you want, Blaine. You really can. But obviously what I want and what makes me happy doesn’t play into this anymore."

"Are you even listening to yourself? Don’t be stupid."

"Don’t you even  _dare_  call me stupid right now, Blaine Devon Anderson."

"Why? Are you even  _listening_  to what you’re saying?"

"Are you? You’re telling me to leave the fucking country!"

"Because it’s a good opportunity!"

"So what I want is what? Irrelevant? Inconsequential? Why do you get to make these decisions for me?"

"Because you don’t think about your future Kurt!"

"What is  _that_  supposed to mean?"

"It means exactly what it sounds like! You just do things, Kurt. You don’t think about what’s going to  _happen_  in the future because of it, you don’t make backup plans, you just go until everything falls apart! And guess who has to put it back together every single time?"

Kurt’s face is twisted into disbelief.

"So I’m sorry if I’m trying to look at every angle! I’m sorry that I’m thinking of your fucking future when you don’t even have the mind to!"

"Oh, well I  _apologize_  for the  _inconvenience_."

"Inconvenience? It’s my life, Kurt. Part-time boyfriend, part-time maid for whenever you have to fall apart!"

The crash startles both of them, Blaine jolting sideways as the plate shatters against the wall and falls to the floor. He stares at it, snapped out of the frenzy the fight had worked him into and he just needs to calm his breathing and then—

_Kurt._

He looks back at Kurt, who is staring at him with wide, glistening eyes.

"Kurt—"

"I have to go."

"No, Kurt, wait—"

"Get  _away_  from me!"

Blaine falters, watching as Kurt grabs up his bag.

"I just, I can’t be here right now. I can’t be near you."

The lock clicking into place has never sounded so final.


	30. Bitter Silence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **06/15/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.
> 
> Sequel to Shattered.

**"Hello, you’ve reached Kurt Hummel. I am currently unavailable, but leave your name and number and I will return your call."**

"Your phone is off or dead, or you’re ignoring my calls, but it’s 3am and I have no idea where you are. Please, please call me back."

*

Blaine tries to sleep, but the sight of their bed just makes guilt roll over him in waves. He grabs a spare blanket and uses one of the pillows from the couch; he doesn’t want anything that might smell like Kurt, not right now.

He alternates between staring at the ceiling and staring at his phone, but he doesn’t sleep. It’s nearly 6am when he finally stands up, opens the window, and climbs out onto the fire escape. The city is waking up and the sounds are comforting. Blaine hugs the blanket around his shoulders and sits, leaning his forehead against the wrought iron and closing his eyes. He clutches his phone in one hand and still doesn’t sleep.

He has class in four hours.

He doesn’t go.

*

**"Hello, you’ve reached Kurt Hummel. I am currently unavailable, but leave your name and number and I will return your call."**

"Kurt… I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. If you don’t want to go to Italy, okay. That should have been my answer from the get go, because this is your decision, it isn’t mine, and I should have supported that. I should have supported you. Please call me back."

*

Blaine sleeps from noon to five and when he wakes up, his phone is dead.

"Shit, shit, shit."

His phone cannot die now, that’s not okay, what if Kurt has been trying to call him?

He bangs into that stupid end table as he races for the bedroom and plugs his phone in, vibrating with anxious energy as he waits for it to turn on.

But there’s nothing.

One text message from a classmate, but nothing from Kurt.

*

"Why hello Blaine, to what do I owe—"

"Rachel, do you know where Kurt is?

"…"

"Rachel?"

"I’m sorry, Blaine, I have to—"

"Can you… Is he okay? Please just tell me that he’s okay."

"He’s okay, Blaine."

_CLICK._

*

 _I love you always and forever_.

Blaine thumbs over the word ‘forever’ over and over again, the little piece of paper old and worn. He stares at his pocket watch and follows the way the second hand moves around the face.

It stops. Blaine shakes it. It’s silent.

He shakes it again, and again, but the hands stay still. He lifts his arm as if to throw it and then crumples onto the couch, falling forward over his knees and resting his forehead against his fist.

*

**"Hello, you’ve reached Kurt Hummel. I am currently unavailable, but leave your name and number and I will return your call."**

"I said a lot of stupid things. I say stupid things all the time and you roll your eyes and you laugh at me because I’m the stupid one, Kurt. Not you. Never you. And I didn’t… I didn’t mean those things I said, I didn’t. I am always your boyfriend, two hundred percent of the time, and it’s not… You put me back together, Kurt. Every time I need you, you’re there, and every time you need me, I’m there. That’s us, that’s how we are, and I love—"  _BEEP_.

*

There’s reading he should be doing, papers he should be outlining, classes he should be attending. It’s been three days and he hasn’t taken a shower.

He tries to read, to write, to  _move_ , but he just lays on the couch and watches television.

But after awhile, even that is too much.

Kurt is everywhere. Kurt is in  _Friends_  and  _I Love Lucy_  and  _How I Met Your Mother_. He’s in  _Phineas and Ferb_  and  _Spongebob_  and  _Adventure Time_. He’s in  _Design on a Dime_  and _What Not to Wear_  and  _Real Housewives_. At one point, Blaine flips to When Harry Met Sally and has to shut the TV off completely.

*

**"Hello, you’ve reached Kurt Hummel. I am currently unavailable, but leave your name and number and I will return your call."**

"Do you remember that one time we went to a travel agency and took every brochure we could find? We laid them all out on the table, and we talked about riding double decker buses in London and I challenged you to a baguette fight in Paris and we made a bet over who could find the weirdest vending machine in Tokyo. Italy… It might not be happening now, if that’s not what you want, but it should someday. For both of us. It should happen together. I never wanted you to go away, Kurt, god, never in a million years would I want that. I want everything for you, but I’m selfish. I want to be there, too."

*

It’s been four days.

Blaine stands in the doorjamb of their bedroom and just looks at the bed. It’s made pristinely, except for the place where Kurt had sat to take his boots off after class on Monday. There are grooves in the comforter, surrounding a ghost.

Blaine sits down on Kurt’s side, staring straight ahead into the bathroom where he can see Kurt’s creams lined up on the counter.

Blaine wonders how Kurt has gone four days without them.

And then he’s smiling, laughing, laughing too hard until they’re ripping out of him and he’s choking on them. They’re not laughs anymore.

The tears sting his eyes, filling them too rapidly so that he has to blink to clear them. He can’t breathe, his chest heaving and constricting as silent sobs rake through him.

He’s curling up on Kurt’s side before he realizes it, clutching Kurt’s pillow to his chest and trying to breathe, trying to calm down.

But he can’t.

*

**"Hello, you’ve reached Kurt Hummel. I am currently unavailable, but leave your name and number and I will return your call."**

"Please come home. I will apologize and make it up to you for the rest of your life, just please come home. Please. We can fix this, I know we can fix this. It’s us, Kurt, and we are both so good at us. This isn’t… Please. Please. I love you so much, Kurt, I love you with every single part of me. And I believe in us, just please. Please tell me there is still something we can fix."

**Voicemail box is full.**


	31. Lost and Found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **06/16/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.
> 
> Sequel to Shattered and Bitter Silence.

It’s a good dream. The best dream, even. The dream that, right now, more than anything, Blaine needs.

Kurt’s smell, the gentle murmur of his voice, the feel of his fingers along Blaine’s face and through his hair.

Blaine doesn’t want it to end, but it does.

He wakes up to the sound of running water and furrows his eyebrows, glancing around the room and feeling disoriented and confused. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, or climbing under the covers. He also doesn’t remember leaving anything running.

He sits up and groans, pinching the bridge of his nose and beginning to search blindly for his phone.

"You’re up."

Blaine’s head flies up so fast it makes his neck throb in protest. He blinks rapidly, trying to get his eyes to focus, and then blinking some more when he doesn’t believe that it’s Kurt standing in the doorway.

They stare at each other and they don’t move. Blaine wants to, can feel the pull in his body, the need to wrap himself around Kurt and  _never let go, never again_. There are a thousand words on the back of his tongue, but his throat constricts and they’re stuck, weighing heavy on his chest until it hurts.

Kurt finally breaches the room, walking with slow, deliberate steps, to the bedside and setting a steaming mug down on the side table. Then he sits by Blaine’s feet, staying sideways and clasping his hands in his lap.

"You came back," Blaine finally manages, and he watches as Kurt bites his lip and nods. Blaine’s hand flexes in the sheet, itching to reach out and touch Kurt and to make sure that all of this is real, that Kurt is actually here. But the same feeling that’s causing his urge is the same reason he restrains himself; everything is delicate, tense, and Blaine is so afraid to break the spell.

"I made you some hot cocoa," Kurt says quietly, gesturing his head towards the mug. He doesn’t look at Blaine. “You weren’t sleeping very well when I got here, so I thought…" Kurt shrugs, letting his sentence hang in the air.

"How long have you been here?" Blaine’s voice is quiet and slightly strangled when he speaks, and he watches as Kurt closes his eyes in a wince.

"A few hours."

Wow.

"Were you having a nightmare?" Kurt raises his eyes for just a moment, meeting Blaine’s stare, and Blaine falls in love all over again.

"I was," Blaine says in a hush. “It’s over now."

Blaine shifts his legs and Kurt startles, eyes widening as he continues to stare at the ground. Blaine stills until Kurt’s shoulders loosen and the veins on his hands sink back into his skin.

He pulls his legs in, crossing them and sitting up straighter, bringing him closer to Kurt.

"So you were—"

"You whimper," Kurt says suddenly, apropos of nothing, and stops Blaine in the middle of his sentence. Kurt glances up again, briefly. “When you have nightmares, you whimper. You roll and you kick and you whimper, and…" Kurt’s voice is thickening the longer he speaks and it tugs Blaine an inch closer.

"And you reach for me," Kurt finishes in a whisper, and Blaine just looks at him. Looks at how drawn Kurt’s face is and the puffy bags beneath his eyes. He looks at Kurt with every ounce of remorse he feels, every hint of apology, and with all, all, all of his love.

"I will always reach for you," Blaine says quietly, and this time he chances it. He reaches forward and touches Kurt’s arm gently, feels the tears prick at his eyes because  _Kurt is here, really here_ , and Blaine can feel him again.

"Kurt, I—"

"Can we not?" Kurt looks at him, eyes pleading, and Blaine swallows. “I don’t… I don’t want to do apologies right now, okay?"

"Okay," Blaine breathes, and his heart stops when one of Kurt’s hands curls over his own. “But I was going to say that I need you, Kurt." There’s a desperate quality to his voice, a channel for every second he’s missed Kurt in the last four days. Kurt grips his hand more tightly.

"We need each other." Kurt looks at him, cracking a small smile, and Blaine feels everything rush out of him at once. He’s lurching forward, Kurt’s arms opening to take him, and they slam and cling together.

"I thought I’d lost you," Blaine says into the curve of Kurt’s neck. He memorizes the way Kurt’s hands cling to him, how Kurt is leaning in just as much as Blaine is.

"Never, never, never," Kurt chants, pressing a kiss to Blaine’s temple. Blaine can feel wetness down his cheek and pulls back to see that Kurt is crying.

"Shh, shh." He leans in, brushing some of the tears away with his thumb and stopping the others with lingering kisses. Kurt hiccups, a breathy laugh coming out as he tries to turn his face away. Blaine stops him.

"No, no, I have missed you too much for you to be embarrassed about crying right now. I don’t care if your face is blotchy or puffy or tear stained or anything, Kurt, anything. I want to look at you for the rest of our lives."

Blaine kisses Kurt’s cheeks, his forehead, the dip between his eyebrows, the tip of his nose, the curve of his jaw, each with a whispered, “I love you."

"I love you, too," Kurt says, eyes fluttering shut, before he kisses Blaine, slow and languid and perfect, filling every inch of emptiness left inside of him.


	32. Food Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **06/15/12**.
> 
>  **musiclover48 prompted:** Blaine and Kurt having a food fight.

"Stop it."

"Stop what? I don’t know what you’re talking about."

"You’re  _gloating_ , Kurt."

"I am  _not_. I just think that after all that talk, I wouldn’t have kicked your ass at a fighting game so easily."

"You’re a  _button masher!_ ”

"Well it’s obviously a really good strategy."

Blaine’s hands tense in the air in front of him, as if he’s imagining shaking Kurt. Instead, he reaches for one of the rolls in the middle of the table and chucks it at Kurt’s chest.

"…did you just throw a  _roll_  at me?"

"Maybe," Blaine challenges back. “Although, I guess you could say—"

"Blaine Anderson-Hummel, don’t you dare finish that sentence!"

"—that you’re on a roll."

The roll goes flying back across the table, smacking into Blaine’s forehead.

"Oh, it is  _on._ ”

"You have an obsession with winning! It’s unhealthy! BLAINE PUT THE SPAGHETTI DOWN, THIS IS A NEW SHIRT."

Blaine catches Kurt around the waist, bringing them together and then smearing the handful of spaghetti down the side of Kurt’s face.

"Oh my  _god_ , was that really necessary?"

Blaine licks up Kurt’s cheek.

"That’s it, I want a divorce."


	33. A Notebook Worthy Kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **06/09/12**.
> 
>  **Anonymous prompted:** Another prompt for you if ya don’t mind :))….: it’s raining and Kurt (or Blaine) just randomly yells ‘why didn’t you write me?,’ and they start quoting and reenacting the scene from the notebook cos they do things like that ;))

"If we run, it shouldn’t be too bad."

A boom sounds above them, as if laughing at the idea, and Kurt gives Blaine a look.

"Look, we don’t know how long this is going to last. Come on. I’ll make it worth your while." Blaine wiggles his eyebrows and holds his hand out for Kurt to take.

"You’re paying for my dry cleaning bill," he says in all seriousness, lacing his fingers with Blaine’s.

"Of course."

They dash out from the protection of the overhang and into the downpour, running across the parking lot and towards the car. Blaine is laughing, running a few steps ahead with his face turned up towards the rain. Kurt shrieks as he jumps over what could have been a very dangerous puddle.

They reach the car, their clothes and hair soaked through and hands still joined. They go to part, but Blaine holds fast to Kurt’s hand, drawing his attention.

"Why didn’t you write me?" Blaine demands over the sound of rain, and Kurt just furrows his eyebrows at him.  _Huh?_  " _Why?_ ”

Kurt didn’t notice that Blaine had let go of his hand, but he does at that moment as the space between them becomes a bit greater. After a few moments, he catches on, trying not to grin to betray the moment.

"It wasn’t over for me! I waited for you for  _seven_  years. And now it’s too late."

Kurt takes a few steps toward Blaine, ignoring how his hair has flopped into his face and the rain is streaming in rivers down his cheeks.

"I wrote you 365 letters." Kurt takes a few more steps closer. “I wrote you every day for a year."

"You wrote me?" Blaine’s voice sounds at the edge of tears and Kurt resists the urge to pull him close, right then.

"Yes!"

Blaine looks away, the water catching on his eyelashes before he glances back at Kurt.

"It wasn’t over," Kurt says, a bit desperately. “It still isn’t over!" He lunges forward then, grabbing Blaine’s face and smashing their mouths together in a fierce kiss. The water makes their lips slip against each other, Kurt’s fingers sliding roughly against Blaine’s cheeks as Blaine’s hands grasp tightly at Kurt’s shoulders.

Blaine’s mouth opens and Kurt can suddenly taste the rainwater, sneaking in past their parted lips. Blaine’s teeth tug on Kurt’s lower lip, tugging their mouths closer together and sealing out the elements.

There’s a sudden strain on Kurt’s shoulders and he drops hands just as Blaine curls a leg around Kurt’s waist. He lifts Blaine, hands tight against his thighs before he backs him up on the hood of the car, crowding between his legs. Blaine’s mouth is hot, his tongue slick against Kurt’s, and Blaine moans as Kurt pulls them closer together.

They break apart with a gasp, their breath too hot against their wet faces. Blaine rests his forehead to Kurt’s, eyes closed, and Kurt watches as Blaine’s lips turn up into a smile.

"I love it when you’re Noah." His eyes open and Kurt has the urge to run his finger along Blaine’s eyelashes, shaking the raindrops away.

"You just like it because I pick you up."

"Guilty." Blaine kisses him again, closed lipped and slightly lingering. “Come on," he mutters against Kurt’s lips. “Let’s go get out of these wet clothes. We have a movie to finish reenacting."


	34. Technologically Illiterate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **06/26/12**.
> 
>  **vastlyunknown prompted:** Kurt is completely inapt when it comes to technology and Blaine finds it both adorable AND adorable! (no, that’s not a typo).

"Kurt?"

Blaine hooks his keys up, shrugging out of his coat and slipping out of his shoes. It’s a little strange, still, living in an apartment. But, for the first time since he’s left Ohio, he actually feels like he’s coming home.

He hears a whispered string of curses and furrows his eyebrows, walking into the living room and seeing Kurt bent over a booklet.

"Um, Kurt. What are you doing?" Blaine sets his things down, walking over as Kurt snaps up to look at him.

"I can’t—" Kurt makes a frustrated noise, throwing the booklet until it hits the wall, and Blaine walks over to pick it up. He looks at it, and then at Kurt in confusion.

"I thought you told me you set the TV up yesterday?"

Kurt averts his eyes and crosses his arms.

"I did, I just… Remotes are stupid. We don’t need remotes, right? It doesn’t hurt to stand up and turn the TV off."

"You say  _now_. Next time you start giving me a hickey during movie night and one of us has to get  _up_  to turn the TV off, you’ll probably think differently."

Kurt mumbles under his breath and Blaine smiles, walking over and sitting down next to him on the (second-hand, cheap, ridiculously uncomfortable and weird smelling) couch. He picks up one of the remotes and turns on the TV.

"I don’t see why you’re upset. It seems to be working fine."

"Try changing the channel."

Blaine does.

"Oh, it… Shouldn’t be doing that."

"Thanks, Blaine, I sort of figured that one out."

Blaine laughs, leaning to kiss Kurt on the cheek. “I love it when you can’t do something. You get so adorably frustrated."

"I’m  _not_  frustrated! Remotes are just… Stupid!"

Blaine nuzzles Kurt’s face, hitting a few buttons on the remote and then setting it down.

"What did you just do?"

"Hopefully fixed it."

Kurt sinks further into the couch, sulking.

"Come on, let’s go bake something. Then you can make fun of me for sucking at something."

"That was very backhanded of you, but that  _does_  sound like it will put me in a better mood."

Blaine kisses Kurt square on the mouth before grabbing his hands and tugging him up from the couch.

"That sounds like the Kurt I know."


	35. Can I Be a Fireman Like Daddy?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **07/01/12**.
> 
>  **littleladyllama prompted:** I need a Drabble where Blaine is a firefighter and Kurt brings their daughter over to say hi and she just runs around with Blaine crawling over everything and mfsjkgsgklre
> 
> *Uses Daisy from my daddy!Klaine verse, but not set within that verse.

"So daddy gets to ride in those big red trucks?" Daisy asks, swinging Kurt’s arm back and forth as they walk down the street. She jumps over a crack and he clings to her hand more tightly, making sure she doesn’t fall.

"Mmhmm."

"I want to ride in a big red truck. Can I be a fireman like daddy?"

Kurt looks down at his daughter, eyebrows pulled together in worry, but he just squeezes her hand and smiles softly.

"Why don’t you ask daddy when we get there, okay?"

She nods, smiling again, when they reach the small drive leading up to the firehouse. The garage doors are open, letting in the warm summer air, and Kurt spots Blaine immediately, leaning against one of the fire engines and talking to a coworker.

Daisy’s hand slips from his.

"Daddy!"

Blaine turns around, catching Daisy as she bolts at him, picking her up and swinging her around.

"Hey, baby girl." He kisses her cheek, holding her close as she wraps her thin arms around his neck. He looks over her shoulder at Kurt, and smiles. “Hey, handsome."

Kurt laughs, walking forward and kissing Blaine. When he pulls back, Daisy immediately takes his place and pecks a kiss to Blaine’s lips.

"Daddy, daddy. Can I be a fireman like you?" She asks eagerly, wiggling in his arms. Blaine raises his eyebrows at Kurt over her shoulder, but Kurt just shrugs.

"And why do you want to be a fireman, Dais?" He asks, shifting her so that her weight is resting on his hip.

"I want to ride in the truck," she says, matter-of-factly, and Blaine laughs. He moves, sitting her down on the front bumper and kneeling down so he’s more eye-level with her.

"Well, you know, honey, that being a fireman isn’t all about riding in red trucks, right?"

"Dad says you save people."

Blaine looks up at his husband, smiling softly before turning his eyes back to Daisy.

"That I do."

"I want to save people," she insists, and Blaine looks up again to see Kurt worrying the collar of his shirt.

"Well then, I suppose we need to put you through training."

Daisy claps excitedly, hopping off the truck excitedly. Blaine takes her hand, leading her over to the wall of fire gear while Kurt trails behind.

"First, you’re going to need a uniform."

"Daddy!" Daisy laughs. “These are too  _big_."

"Hmm. Are you  _sure_ _?_ " Blaine scoops her up and drops her into the boots, which cover her entire legs. She’s laughing hysterically.

"Maybe the jacket will fit," Kurt comments.

"Dad’s right."

"No! It’s too big!" She laughs, but Blaine brings his jacket down off the hook and slips her arms into it. “And  _heavy_." The jacket completely drowns her, and she’s moving her arms up and down, flapping them like a bird.

"Hmm, something’s missing." Blaine steps back, tapping his chin as Kurt comes to stand next to him. “Honey, what do you think is missing?"

"Well, you know what I say. A hat really can pull an ensemble together." Kurt steps forward, picking up Blaine’s helmet and securing it on Daisy’s head. It dips low over her eyes, nearly obscuring them, and she attempts to push it up even with her hand trapped inside the sleeve.

"Daddy, I can’t  _move_ ," she laughs.

"Well, that is a problem, fireman need to be able to move." Together, Kurt and Blaine work her out of the hat and coat and then Blaine is lifting her out of the boots. “Hmm, what else does a fireman have to do?"

"Ride in the truck!"

"You know, fireman need to know how to slide down the pole," Kurt points out, and Blaine nods solemnly.

"That is a  _very_  important part of being a fireman."

“ _Daddy_."

Blaine lifts Daisy around his shoulders.

"Blaine—" Kurt says, nervously, walking behind him and holding his hands awkwardly, ready to catch Daisy in case she decides to fling herself backwards.

"Wait for her at the bottom?" He asks, and Kurt nods, watching as Blaine disappears up to the second level of the firehouse.

"Dad’s going to catch you, okay?"

"Promise?"

"I promise, sweetheart!" Kurt calls up, looking to see Daisy with her legs wrapped around the pole and Blaine holding her.

"Ready?" He asks, and she nods jerkily, her eyes crammed shut. “One, two—"

"Three," Kurt says, and Blaine lets her go. She slides quickly down the bar and into Kurt’s arms. She clings to him, and he smoothes the fabric of her dress. “I’ve got you," he hums, and then Blaine is there.

"Daddy, I don’t want to be a fireman anymore," she says, hiding her face in Kurt’s neck, and Blaine smiles.

"That’s okay, sweetie. You’ll still help people one day." He leans in, kissing the top of her head, and she smiles back at him in return.

A siren cuts through the firehouse, and they hear the movement of the men before they see them.

"That’s my cue." Blaine leans in, kissing Kurt a little longer than he usually does in front of Daisy. “I love you both."

"I love you, too," Kurt says quietly.

"Love you, daddy! Fight fire!" Daisy calls, waving. They stand back, watching as the men suit up and load onto the fire engines. Daisy begins making woo’ing noises along with the sirens, and they watch as they pull out of the station and disappear.


	36. Burned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **07/10/12**.
> 
> Heavily, heavily based off the concept of the TV show Burn Notice. Written for my friend, and fellow Burn Notice enthusiast, Sere.

_When you’re burned, you’ve got nothing. No cash, no credit, no job history. You’re stuck in whatever city they decide to dump you in. You do whatever work comes your way. You rely on anyone who’s still talking to you. Bottom line? Until you figure out who burned you… You’re not going anywhere._

*

Sometimes, Kurt  _really_  hates his job. Normally he hates his job when something has gone wrong, which it normally has when he wakes up in this much pain. He remembers passing out on a plane. Doesn’t know why he was on the plane, but he certainly collapsed on one. But he’s lying flat now and there’s a fan going, ruffling the stiffness of his dress shirt.

A foot kicks him sharply in the ribs.

"Fuck!" He curls away from it, head whipping up as his hand searches under the pillow—wait, where is his gun?

"Wake up." The foot jabs at him again and Kurt groans. He knows that voice. Sure enough, when he raises his head to look behind him, Blaine is posed with a leg on his bed, waiting to kick him.

"Ugh, where  _am_  I?" Kurt groans, burying his face in the pillow. If Blaine is here, it’s probably hell; Kurt knew that was always going to come back to bite him in the ass.

"Santa Monica," Blaine answers, standing up and walking to the nightstand, pouring a cup of water. Kurt doesn’t even realize he’s thirsty until he hears the liquid hit the glass.

"That’s… I was in Nigeria," Kurt mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Key word being  _was_." Blaine holds the cup out for Kurt, who props himself up, hissing at the stiffness in his limbs as he does so.

"But how—"

"Look, I don’t know. I get woken up at four in the morning and you’re being handed off to me. I thought you were drunk off your ass."

“ _Ha_." Kurt certainly feels like he’s hungover, but that doesn’t make sense. “I was… Working."

"Oh, well how nice of you to come and visit. I mean, what has it been?" Blaine looks at the watch on his wrist. “Just over three years without a word?"

"Blaine—"

"Since I just  _woke_   _up_  and you were gone?"

"Blaine, you know—"

"You didn’t leave anything, Kurt. There were no goodbyes, no notes, it was like…"

"I didn’t have a choice," Kurt insists, wishing that Blaine wouldn’t bring this up  _now_ when Kurt feels like his entire head is made of bricks.

"Bullshit."

Kurt tries to hide his head under the pillow, block out the light, but Blaine tears it away, throwing it across the room.

"Blaine, can we… Not right now? I think I was drugged and my gun is missing."

"Oh, you’re gun is missing. Right. Can’t live without your gun, can you, Kurt?"

Kurt glares at him.

"Blaine, I get it. You want to talk. But someone drugged me, I am in California for some reason, and I need to call my handler. Can we just…"

Blaine’s eyes soften and he sighs, digging into his pocket and tossing something towards Kurt—oh, his phone.

"Fine. But get out of my apartment. I can’t look at you anymore right now."

Kurt doesn’t say anything, knows that anything else could have Blaine drawing a gun on him at any moment. Blaine might mock Kurt about his relationship with his gun, but it’s an attachment they both share. Kurt is certain there’s five hidden in the bedroom alone. So he downs the glass of water, groans in pain as he works himself out of the bed (still fully dressed, down to his  _shoes_ , no wonder Blaine thought he was trashed), and Blaine is gone by the time Kurt is working himself out of the apartment.

It’s been years since he’s been in Santa Monica. He doesn’t even know where he  _is_ , can hear the loud rush of cars and is surrounded by people. The air smells like the ocean and Kurt wonders for a moment why Blaine is even  _in_  Santa Monica. The last time…

Well, a lot of things change in three years.

But he isn’t staying; there’s no reason to stay. He’ll have a drink with Blaine, pacify him, and go on his next assignment. Because that’s his life—it has been for nine years now. He just needs to get back to Washington and back into it.

"Hello, United Airlines, how may I be of assistance?"

"I need to book a redeye to DC tonight."

"Alright… Your name?"

"Kurt Hummel."

"Okay, Mr. Hummel. There is a flight that leaves tomorrow morning at 12:45, will that be sufficient?"

"That’s perfect."

"Will you be flying—"

"Business, please."

"Of course. How will you be paying for this?"

"Credit."

"Alright… Okay, Mr. Hummel, if you could just give me that number now?"

Kurt prattles the numbers off by memory, leaning against a wall and wincing at the pain in his back. He recalls being flipped at some point before he blacked out.

"I’m sorry, Mr. Hummel, but that card has been declined. Do you have another number you can use?"

 _Declined?_  He blinks in surprise. But that’s okay, he has other numbers he can use. Mistakes are made, paperwork isn’t processed; things happen. But his next number is declined, and the number after that, and Kurt feels panic start to lock up in his heart. He hangs up on the airline attendant without thinking, looking around frantically when he spots a bank. It doesn’t matter the bank—it just needs to be one.

He hurries to an empty ATM, inserting his card. But it isn’t even  _read_. It spits back out at him almost immediately, and it keeps happening.

Kurt hurries inside, thankful for the rush of life that overtakes most Santa Monica citizens; no one wants to wait in line at a bank. He hurries to a teller, setting his card down.

"Kurt Hummel. I’d like to check the status of my account."

The teller blinks at him in surprise before she begins to type away on her computer.

"Okay, Mr. Hummel, if you could just—"

Kurt inputs his pin without even looking, staring at her intently. She seems to shrink back under the intensity of it, looking at the screen where her eyebrows furrow.

"Mr. Hummel, it appears your account has been frozen."

"Frozen?" Kurt asks in disbelief, and the teller nods.

Credit cards declined. Bank account frozen.

"Thank you." He forces a smile and then pushes his way outside, jerking his phone out and dialing his handler’s number. It rings longer than it should—it’s never this hard for him to get in contact with Will. Finally, it picks up, and Kurt lets out a breath of relief.

"Will, can you tell me what’s going on? I woke up in  _Santa Monica_  this morning, and everything has been frozen, and… Will?"

Normally his handler has cut him off by now.

"I’m sorry, Kurt. We’ve received a burn notice on you. You’re blacklisted."

The call ends. Kurt stares at his phone in disbelief and then laughs. Blacklisted?  _Him?_ He shakes his head, dialing the number again, but the phone beeps in his ear.

 _Unable to make call_.

And now his phone. This… This  _cannot_  be happening. Everything is gone. What is he supposed to do now?

*

_My name is Kurt Hummel. I used to be a spy._


	37. Strawberries & Bow Ties

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **08/12/12**.

"Oh my god, Kurt."

Kurt looks over from his binder (The Wedding Binder, all capital letters, and something he started putting together pretty much the day him and Blaine moved in together… And maybe even earlier) and down at where Blaine is seated on the floor. He’s leafing through magazines as Kurt goes through his pages of possible floral combinations; they decided it was best if they both proposed ideas separately and then compromised.

It led to a lot less bickering.

"Can we have these at the wedding?" Blaine turns and holds up the magazine for Kurt to see, and Kurt’s lips part in an exasperated grin.

“ _Really_ , Blaine?"

Blaine peeps to the side of the magazine, eyes big an expectant.

"Kurt, they’re strawberries with bow ties. And little suits! Little suits, Kurt!" He shakes the magazine with his enthusiasm and Kurt just shakes his head fondly.

"Do you know how many strawberries we’d need for the reception? We haven’t even finalized the guest list yet, and then we have to decide who we’re only inviting for the ceremony and—"

"Okay, okay, Kurt, calm down." Blaine sets a hand on Kurt’s thigh and he quiets because, yeah, he’d started doing that thing where he talks really fast. He can’t help it, though. The wedding is still horribly far away and it still doesn’t seem like enough time.

"What if we just got them for us?"

"You are really not going to give up on these strawberries, are you?"

Blaine moves to his knees and inches closer, looking very seriously up at Kurt.

"You cannot tell me that you don’t find them a little endearing."

"I find you a little endearing," Kurt counters, and Blaine smiles.

"Then you should let me have the strawberries."

Kurt laughs.

"You are insufferable."

"Endearingly insufferable!"


	38. He's Totally Gay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **8/15/12**.
> 
> Based on [this gifset](http://sararye.tumblr.com/post/29500971634).

"Dibs," they say at exactly the same time and then gasp at one another.

"Kurt, he is our  _teacher_ ," Rachel hisses with all the indignation she can muster (which is quite a lot).

"You’re right, that would be incredibly inappropriate." He turns forward again and crosses his legs, but it’s only a few moments before Rachel is leaning in towards him.

"Besides, he’s probably not gay."

Kurt’s eyes narrow sharply but he doesn’t look away from Mr. Anderson, who is beginning to go over their syllabus at the front of the classroom.

He doesn’t mean for it to become a contest, but everything eventually develops into a competition with Rachel Berry at some point or another (Kurt would like to think he definitely won ‘best decorated dormroom’). And really, he starts it. He wears his skinniest jeans and his most flattering vest-shirt combinations; one day he even dresses down a bit just to wear the cotton three-quarter length shirt that Tina had once said accentuated his collarbones (which it  _totally_  does).

To anyone else, this is just how Kurt Hummel dresses, but to Rachel Berry it is an obvious challenge. Her wardrobe is far from  _risque_  but, in those first few weeks, Kurt sees far more of her cleavage than he really ever wanted to.

But there are nearly a hundred people in their lecture and so Kurt knows that he’s going to have to go above and beyond to beat Rachel at their little game. Because that’s what it is: a game. No matter how handsome Mr. Anderson is, or how much Kurt spaces out thinking about his smile or the color of his eyes or the warmth of his voice or what his hands—

Anyways, Mr. Anderson is his teacher and Kurt knows there are boundaries there.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to win.

Music theory isn’t really that hard, at least it isn’t for Kurt. It isn’t exactly what he imagined when he decided to go to NYADA, but even a dramatic arts college can’t be all singing, acting, and dancing (which, while unfortunate, probably won’t lead to Kurt being worn out well before his prime).

So he does exactly what Mr. Anderson told them to do; he goes to Office Hours. Mr. Anderson looks surprised (pleasantly so, if Kurt is reading him right) to see Kurt and gestures for him to take a seat. Rather than putting an entire desk between them, Mr. Anderson perches on his desk.

"What can I help you with, Kurt?"

It’s not a surprise Mr. Anderson knows his name; Kurt is very vocal in his classes. But it’s still nice to be remembered.

"Actually, I had some questions about the reading you assigned," Kurt begins but stops short when he realizes how relieved Mr. Anderson looks. “What?"

"Oh, nothing, just… I’ve had about fifteen or twenty students in here since the start of the semester and they’ve really only said hi before leaving."

 _Probably because they came to ogle you_ , Kurt thinks. At least he had the decency to come up with a logical reason for going to see their teacher.

"In fact, I think one of them was your friend… What’s her name? That girl you sit with?"

_Mr. Anderson knows my name and not Rachel’s. That’s totally worth points._

"Rachel."

He makes an ‘ah’ gesture with his head.

"So what was it you needed help with?"

Kurt sits up in the chair and crosses his legs, immediately launching into their reading about the origin of Gregorian chants. Mr. Anderson actually seems impressed with him and, without meaning to, they end up in an intense discussion about the music of the past and it’s contributions to music today. Kurt hadn’t even meant to stay very long and, too quickly, an alarm is going off somewhere.

"Oh," Mr. Anderson says, startled. “I guess my hours are over."

Kurt can’t help but feel a little disappointed, but he nods and stands from his chair.

"We’ll just have to continue our discussion on melismas in modern music another day."

"So you admit that Gregorian chants  _are_  important," Mr. Anderson teases as he stands and walks Kurt to the door of his office.

"Gregorian chants, like most early forms of music, is a form of music that just makes it easier to shove religion down people’s throats. Which I suppose was the norm back then, but that doesn’t mean it has to sit right with me two thousand years later," Kurt replies primly. “But thank you for the riveting conversation, Mr. Anderson." He gives a grateful tilt of his head and a smile and Mr. Anderson smiles back.

"Any time. Office hours are actually really boring when students don’t show up, so if you ever want to have another conversation… My door is always open." Mr. Anderson pauses for a moment and then smiles. “Well, it’s open Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3pm-5pm." He chuckles and Kurt can’t help but smile a little more.

_That totally counts as him inviting me back, right?_

"I might just take you up on that, Mr. Anderson. I’ll see you in class tomorrow." He gives a small wave and then turns on his heel before walking away. He counts to ten in his head and when he glances over his shoulder he sees Mr. Anderson jerk his gaze away.

_He was totally checking out my ass._

_He is totally gay._

_I totally win._


	39. Online

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **08/20/12**.
> 
> Part of my _100 Drabble Challenge_.

**To:**  tiedwithabowtie707@gmail.com   
 **From:**  broadwayismyrunway27@me.com

 **Subject:**  Scarves, cardigans, and sweaters, oh my!

> I don’t know if I ever told you, but my favorite season is fall. In fact, if there are people who don’t like fall I have immediate reason to dislike them (so, for the sake of our friendship, just play along). My favorite fashion trends manifest themselves in the fall and I am allowed to pull out my (still in season, carefully worn, properly loved) collection of scarves, cardigans, and sweaters.
> 
> There’s no rule anywhere that says I can’t wear these things at any other time in the year (winter, if you hadn’t guessed, is my second favorite season), but sweating profusely just to wear a cardigan in the summertime is just not acceptable.
> 
> There is nothing fashionable (or attractive) about pit stains (even the word makes me want to vomit).
> 
> -K 

**To:**  broadwayismyrunway27@me.com  
 **From:**  tiedwithabowtie707@gmail.com 

 **Subject:**  RE: Scarves, cardigans, and sweaters, oh my!

> I always thought you would be a fall person. You do talk about scarves and cardigans a lot (then again, I can’t fault you for either).
> 
> No pretending here! I love the fall, especially in New York. I try to hit at least one park almost daily just so I don’t miss the way the leaves change color before they eventually, well, fall.
> 
> That’s why it’s called fall, right? I never understood why there were two words for it. I always thought autumn was prettier but you just don’t hear a lot of people use the word autumn. I feel like someone told me once that autumn was when the leaves changed and fall was when they fell (obviously). I don’t know how much truth there is to that. And I honestly don’t care enough to open another tab and Google it.
> 
> I have to admit that I do sometimes wear cardigans in the fall, but I’ll have you know I have never sported a sweat stain outside of my workout clothing (that was too much information, wasn’t it?).
> 
> And that’s two words, elusive K. :P
> 
> Perry is getting anxious so I better take him for a walk. I think he loves fall more than the two of us combined, but maybe that’s because I walk him more often than I do any other time of the year. Although spring is a good dog-walking season, too. I feel like someone should hunt down that kindly old lady that let me adopt a puppy and say, “How could you let that happen? He can hardly take care of himself much less another creature!"
> 
> -B
> 
> P.S. Chances are I’m going to regret that pit stain comment about sixty seconds after I hit send.

**To:**  broadwayismyrunway27@me.com  
 **From:**  tiedwithabowtie707@gmail.com 

 **Subject:**  Yep.

> Totally regretting it.

**To:**  tiedwithabowtie707@gmail.com   
 **From:**  broadwayismyrunway27@me.com

 **Subject:**  RE: Yep.

> There is nothing wrong with exercising, anonymous B, but I think we should keep our secretions to ourself in the future.
> 
> I’m glad we share a love of fall, even though I hardly have the time to take leisurely walks through parks. :( I try to make it to Central at least every other week, but I don’t get to see the slow progression you do. You should keep me updated. Haven’t you told me you’re quite the writer? Now would be as good a time as any to show me your A-game.
> 
> I am still confused whether or not your dog is named after a secret agent platypus or Katy Perry. I think I’m disturbed either way.
> 
> If you’d like, I can report you. Who do I go to? PETA?
> 
> "To whom it may concern, You allowed a stranger I met on the internet to have a dog and he apparently thinks he is incapable of taking care of it. Personally, I think he loves his dog more than anything and you should probably give him all the dogs. He can run some sort of home for unloved dogs. Trust me, he’d be perfect."
> 
> Whoops, that turned out like more of a recommendation. ;)
> 
> -K

**To:**  broadwayismyrunway27@me.com  
 **From:**  tiedwithabowtie707@gmail.com 

 **Subject:**  No Subject

> Keep our secretions to ourself?
> 
> Really?

**To:**  broadwayismyrunway27@me.com  
 **From:**  tiedwithabowtie707@gmail.com 

 **Subject:**  RE: RE: Yep.

> Is that a challenge, mysterious K? I’ll have you know that I never back down from a challenge.
> 
> Aw, ambiguous K! Do you really think I could do something like that? Is that a career path that I might be able to explore a little more? I think loving dogs for the rest of my life sounds amazing, especially if I could live off of it! You’re a genius, enigmatic K!
> 
> I’m sorry you don’t have time for walks. I know I don’t know much about your personal or professional life, but you always sound so busy to me. :c You should really take the time to relax.
> 
> -B

**To:**  tiedwithabowtie707@gmail.com   
 **From:**  broadwayismyrunway27@me.com

 **Subject:**  RE: No Subject

> OMG.
> 
> NO. Just. Forget I ever said that. I mean, or don’t, I didn’t. I didn’t mean it that way! You know, email is supposed to make it so I don’t embarrass myself.
> 
> It was a challenge, evasive B. I look forward to reading/seeing the fruits of your efforts. Impress me! ;)
> 
> I believe there is something like that. It’s called dogsitting.
> 
> Also, ambiguous? Do you have thesaurus.com constantly open?
> 
> I am busy, but it’s worth it. One day maybe you’ll understand how, but it is. Still, a walk in the park sounds nice.
> 
> -K

**To:**  broadwayismyrunway27@me.com  
 **From:**  tiedwithabowtie707@gmail.com 

 **Subject:**  RE: RE: No Subject

> It’s okay! I was teasing you. I know that’s not what you meant, don’t worry! You should know me better after all this time (two months is all this time, right?).
> 
> Prepare to be impressed, perplexing K.
> 
> Why do you have to crush my dreams? Why?
> 
> Also, you can’t accuse me of using a thesaurus when you also obviously used one. Evasive? Really?
> 
> I hope I find out one day, too.
> 
> Walks in the park are nice. I’d love to take you on one sometimes.
> 
> -B

**To:**  broadwayismyrunway27@me.com  
 **From:**  tiedwithabowtie707@gmail.com 

 **Subject:**  I’m sorry

> Was that too forward?
> 
> I didn’t mean to push.
> 
> You can forget I ever said that.

**To:**  tiedwithabowtie707@gmail.com   
 **From:**  broadwayismyrunway27@me.com

 **Subject:**  RE: I’m sorry

> No, it wasn’t forward. I’m more surprised then anything. You want to take me on a walk in the park? You want to meet me?

**To:**  broadwayismyrunway27@me.com  
 **From:**  tiedwithabowtie707@gmail.com 

 **Subject:**  RE: RE: I’m sorry

> I’ve wanted to meet you for awhile now.

**To:**  tiedwithabowtie707@gmail.com   
 **From:**  broadwayismyrunway27@me.com

 **Subject:**  RE: RE: RE: I’m sorry

> Good to know I’m not the only one.
> 
> Then I guess it wouldn’t hurt to reveal ourselves, would it?

**To:**  broadwayismyrunway27@me.com  
 **From:**  tiedwithabowtie707@gmail.com 

 **Subject:**  That subject line was misleading and depressing

> My name’s Blaine. :)

**To:**  tiedwithabowtie707@gmail.com   
 **From:**  broadwayismyrunway27@me.com

 **Subject:**  You are such a dork.

> Kurt. :)


	40. Kurt and Blaine at Build-A-Bear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **08/20/12**.
> 
> Inspired by [this art](http://grandoldivy.tumblr.com/post/29883290029/laughlovemusic-asked-kurt-and-blaine-at-build-a-bear).

Kurt took the bear gingerly in his hands, fighting between the urge to laugh and to cry at the same time. It was a deep brown, soft, and the bow tie (because it was wearing a  _bow tie_ ) was a purple gingham that was quite fashionable for a teddy bear. It’s tiny little oxford was white and it’s pants were red and it even had soft little wingtips strapped to it’s feet.

He wasn’t going to ask how it had the eyebrows, but they looked like felt and weren’t masterly stitched, so Kurt didn’t say anything. He was happy enough to have a bear that was quite literally a personification of Blaine, and if his boyfriend was going to go the extra mile and stitch eyebrows onto it… Well, it just made Kurt fall in love with him a little bit more.

"Blaine, I—"

"No, wait, that’s not all." Blaine shifted a little closer on the mattress, shuffling on his knees and bringing Kurt’s hand down to the bear’s paw. “Squeeze it," he said softly, looking up at Kurt expectantly.

Kurt furrowed his eyebrows but didn’t question it. He could feel something hard inside the bear’s soft paw—a button. So he pressed it.

"I love you so much, Kurt."

Kurt reeled back in surprise, staring at the bear. Because that wasn’t some cheesy bear voice, it wasn’t something massproduced that children all over the country had. That was  _Blaine’s_  voice. Telling Kurt that he loved him.

The tears seemed to win out over the laughter, and he blinked quickly, trying to keep himself under control. But Blaine was there, cupping Kurt’s face in his hand and smiling at him.

"I do," he whispered. “I love you so, so much."

A sob escaped Kurt’s mouth and he pressed closer to Blaine, hiding his face in his boyfriend’s neck.

"And now you can be reminded every day, as often as you like, even when I’m not there to say it."


	41. Hand Holding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **09/21/12**.
> 
>  **Anonymous prompted:** Klaine, hand holding.

There is something about holding Kurt’s hand that Blaine is sure he’ll never get over.

It might have to do with the fact that, simply put, Blaine is absolutely enamored with Kurt’s hands. The length of his fingers, the grooves of his knuckles, the curve of his palm, the soft touch of his fingertips, and the thin, delicate skin over the back. Blaine loves touching Kurt’s hands—loves running his own fingers over the lines as if he can read Kurt’s future there, tracing feather light with the edge of his nails over the inside of Kurt’s fingers until Kurt giggles and pulls his hand away. Blaine loves drawing pictures on the back of Kurt’s hand while they talk, doodling swirls or hearts or promises with the pad of his finger.

Kurt doesn’t seem to notice Blaine’s obsession, or, if he does, he doesn’t mention it. It’s not something telling, not really, the way Blaine always likes to turn Kurt’s hands around in his own and feel every inch of them—it’s simple, sweet, and hardly distracting. It’s touch, at its most basic level, and it picks up the corners of Kurt’s lips a little more than usual.

Blaine loves to touch, and Kurt loves for Blaine to touch him.

They hold hands because they can. Because holding hands can be quick—a clasp, a squeeze, and then it’s gone—or lingering, and it will still mean just as much. It’s  _safe_  in a place where Blaine can’t brush his lips across Kurt’s cheek just because he wants to, where their fingers can’t even stay laced too long and hugs have to be brief. Touches that last and hold and stay are for them, are for  _later_ , are whispers of the future when the now is too dark to look at.

So Blaine holds Kurt’s hand when he can’t do anything else.

 _I would hug you_ , is what it means when he cups Kurt’s hand in both of his and squeezes.

 _I love you_ , is what it means when Blaine laces their fingers together.

 _I want to kiss you_ , is what it means when his fingers dance across the back of Kurt’s hand before their palms press together.

 _I’m here, always_ , is what it means when Kurt holds out his hand, palm up, and Blaine meets it without fear.


	42. Ferris Wheel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **09/27/12**.
> 
>  **princeblainers prompted:** Klaine on a ferris wheel

"Please?"

Blaine eyes the ferris wheel warily, even as Kurt tugs insistently at his hand.

"Can’t we… Go on something else?" Blaine asks, hopefully. “Maybe the scramblers again, or… Or I could win you something?" His voice goes a little desperate at the end and Kurt’s lips turn into a— _oh no_.

“ _Blaine_." Kurt pouts at him, grabbing at Blaine’s fingers with both of his hands as if he’s a small child rather than a year older than Blaine. Kurt might act as if Blaine’s puppy dog eyes are the end-all of all arguments, but, then again, Kurt has no idea the force of his own pleading looks. “It’s romantic," Kurt whispers, looking around and stepping closer. He glances up at Blaine through his eyelashes (totally unfair).

"I’ve always wanted to kiss you at the top of a ferris wheel."

Blaine groans—Kurt is  _killing_  him. This time, when Kurt pulls on his hand, Blaine goes along, only slightly dragging his feet. Blaine reminds himself that the smile lighting up Kurt’s face will, in the end, make all of this so very worth it.

He doesn’t trust ferris wheels, and he certainly doesn’t trust the rickety, shabbily put together one at the local county fair. The bored-looking man who pulls the bar over their laps doesn’t seem particularly worried about the fact that they might plunge to their death—god, a screw could come loose and they could hurdle towards the ground and they aren’t even moving yet and Blaine is thinking of all the ways he can keep Kurt from dying.

"We’re going to be okay," Kurt assures him quietly as the ride lurches into movement. They’re going backwards and Blaine grabs Kurt’s hand where it rests between them immediately, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths. It’s just a ferris wheel, it’s just a ferris wheel, it’s  _just a ferris wheel_. Kurt’s thumb moves back and forth across the back of Blaine’s palm, and he tries to focus on the soothing gesture.

"You weren’t kidding, were you?"

The ferris wheel slows to a stop, the basket swinging back and forth and Blaine grips Kurt’s hand more tightly.

"You really are afraid of the ferris wheel?"

"Please wait until we’re not dangling in the air to make fun of me, please," Blaine says through gritted teeth.

"Shhh, shhh."

Blaine feels Kurt’s hand touch his face and he leans into it, instinctively.

"Open your eyes," Kurt says gently, and Blaine does, meeting Kurt’s gaze. “Just. Look at me, okay? Don’t look down. And we’ll never have to go on another ferris wheel again, okay?"

"But you like them," Blaine protests.

"And I love you." Kurt glances around and then leans in, brushing a kiss to Blaine’s lips. “I think it’s obvious which one wins out."


	43. Like Jack and Sally

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **10/18/12**.
> 
>  **gbernadon prompted:** jack  & sally klaine?

Whatever is falling from the sky, it’s cold and wet and wonderful. It seeps in through his patchwork clothing, creeping its way through his stitches and chilling him all the way through. Perhaps it should be miserable, but Blaine finds it completely fascinating, holding his hands out to catch the wisps of white before they dissolve into the fabric of his skin.

It’s a Christmas thing, it must be, because Halloweentown has never seen anything quite like it. Blaine doesn’t think they deserve it, not after what they did, but if he learned anything from Santa Claus… Well, it’s that the folks in Christmastown are quite different than the people Blaine is used to. He’s young yet—something Dr. Smythe had been loathe to remind him of on many occasions—but he’s seen his share of Halloweens. Santa Claus  _gives_  and Blaine is sure that many of Halloweentown’s residents are unfamiliar with the idea in its true complexities.

Sometimes he can’t help but wonder why he’s different, how he could possibly be different, but he is. He always has been.

The town is in an uproar as it’s coated in the cold white, like wiping a canvas completely clean. Things turn slick or soft and Blaine’s uncoordinated legs slip until he’s bent at strange angles, sliding away from a pumpkin that the vampires have taken to beating around with sticks. It draws a smile to Blaine’s face—it’s strange to see the creatures of Halloweentown making merry over anything that doesn’t cause bone-crippling horror.

Still, the gallivanting and shrieking that erupts around him doesn’t seem quite right. The beauty that’s falling around him, catching to the threads of his eyelashes and hair, seems broken by all the noise. Blaine finds himself slinking away, invisible beneath all the festivities in a way he’s come to perfect—helpful and unnoticed, a supporting hand, a hidden stitch that holds together but is functional and not beautiful.

He slips easily between the wide gates into the cemetery; even in a town full of nightmareish creatures, it always seems to go so untouched. The white glistens in its undisturbed state and Blaine marvels at each footprint he leaves as he walks, weaving around tombstones and brushing cold dust off the tops. He pauses by one, leaning down in that awkward way of his, to pick the browned, dead shape of a flower. Blaine thinks it’s a flower—it’s what he’s always called them, but after Christmas, he has to wonder if it really is a flower at all.

Nothing happens to it, even as he stares—it doesn’t change, doesn’t go up in flames, and the leaves catch the white as it falls and breaks against it. Breath leaves him in relief; no more disaster, no more danger, no more losing—

Well, Blaine supposes he can’t really lose something that was never his to begin with.

He continues his climb up the slope of the curled hill, folding himself at the top and letting the white seep into him—cold, wet, but not unpleasant; it’s real, and Blaine loves it. He wishes he had a name for it, and thinks that Kurt probably knows its name and maybe, one day,  _maybe_ , he will tell Blaine what it is.

If they ever speak again.

Blaine plucks a leaf from the flower and thinks,  _maybe_.

"My dearest friend—"

Blaine starts, lifting his head and looking over his back and there’s… It’s Kurt. There’s  _Kurt_ , of all the creatures in Halloweentown, sliding through the gate of the cemetery and towards him.

"If you don’t mind."

He’s in his stark black, pinstriped suit, the one he always used to wear before… Before everything, before Christmas, before things changed. He moves in all of his pale, sharp-angled glory, limbs folding with purpose as he retraces Blaine’s steps towards the hill.

"I’d like to join you by your side."

Blaine feels heat, glances away at his now discarded flower, and awkwardly unfolds himself until he’s standing. Kurt doesn’t stop, keeps moving, keeps singing in that way that’s entranced Blaine since that very first Halloween (when he’d watched Kurt drag himself up and out of a grave, raising the dead around him and pulling screams from the night).

"Where we can gaze into the stars…" Kurt stares at him hesitantly, expectantly, and Blaine feels that moment that was almost theirs—right there, safe from the brink of death, safe knowing that Kurt was safe and not scattered in pieces somewhere where Blaine would never find him—come back. Kurt extends his hands, pale even against the white, and Blaine takes them; they’re cold, but strong, and Kurt weaves their fingers together the way Blaine weaves his arm to his shoulder when it falls off.

When Kurt sings again, Blaine joins him, their voices mixed in something lovely—lovely, not eerie the way things normally are—on the wind.

"And sit together, now and forever."

Blaine bites down on a smile, Kurt close enough that he can see the deep, ever present shadows beneath his eyes—his eyes, the only color that should ever be there, that bone-chilling blue that has always fascinated Blaine beyond explanation.

"For it is plain, as anyone can see."

Kurt’s breath is warm against his cheek, and Blaine’s eyes flutter closed, white slipping off his eyelashes like tears down his cheeks.

"We’re simply meant to be."

Hands disappear, but long, lithe arms fold around his shoulders and Blaine hesitates before twining his own arms around a long, graceful neck. And then there’s lips, warm against his and questioning, and Blaine surges into them with an answer: _yes_.


	44. Kurt Meets Blaine on Star Tours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **10/18/12**.
> 
>  **satinechristian prompted:** kurt and blaine meet at disneyland because one of them works there *u*

"Finn, calm down, you look like you’re about to  _pee_  yourself," Kurt mutters, glancing around self consciously as Finn vibrates with energy beside him.

"Star Wars ride, man! Star Wars!" Finn says back, excitedly. “There were Storm Troopers in line outside!"

"I know, Finn. I was there."

"Oh god, this is gonna be  _awesome_."

Kurt is less inclined to agree, but that might have more to do with the fact that he had wanted to go on Space Mountain first and Finn had practically begged him to do Star Tours, instead. Not that they can’t do Space afterwards, and it’s certainly better than not being in the park at all—he’s almost positive his dad and Carole are still asleep.

"I have to admit, they did go pretty all out for the line," Kurt mutters appreciatively as they move forward, Finn moving back and forth and watching with amusement as his inverted image dances around on the screen. Then he becomes fascinated with the talking robot that, Kurt has to admit, is pretty funny.

The line begins to flow forward again and Kurt is thankful, wanting to get on the ride and get off and go on a  _real_  ride.

"How many?" The worker asks, and when Finn says, “two," he holds up his hand and stops them before they can pass through the turnstile.

"We need a single rider to the front of the line!" The worker calls, and Kurt has to admit that his ability to project is quite impressive. “Looking for a Han Solo!" Kurt cracks a smile, biting down on his lip—because, yeah, that pun is pretty hilarious. “We need an Obi- _one_  Kenobi!"

Kurt has to wonder what else he could come up with, but then some teenager is pushing past them, waving his hand wildly, and passing through.

"Oh, glasses! Kurt, don’t forget your flight glasses!" Finn nudges him with a pair of some of the ugliest glasses Kurt has possibly ever seen, and he holds them unsurely between his fingertips. There is no way they can be sanitary.

"Two?" The worker reappears, and at Finn’s enthusiastic nod, he waves them forward. “You’re going to head down to Blaine at Gate D."

 _Gate D_. Kurt forgot how seriously all of these people take their jobs.

Finn hurries through the turnstile and Kurt follows behind him at a more reasonable pace, digging through his bag for his sanitary wipes and nearly walking right into a set of dividing bars when a hand grasps his shoulder.

"Careful there."

Kurt looks up in surprise, words failing as he comes face-to-face with a pair of bright, hazel eyes.

"And please do remember that Star Tours is not liable for any personal or property damage while you’re in our service."

 _Oh_. Kurt looks down and sees the tacky blue-and-silver uniform. Of course. It’s one of the workers. And he is  _really_  hamming it up.

"Thank you," Kurt responds, eyes darting to his nametag—Blaine. “I’ll be sure to let my lawyer know."

Playing along is worth it for the grin Blaine sends him.

"Row 1, please," he directs, and Kurt nods, glancing back over his shoulder only once before he takes his place behind Finn.

"I’m so excited, dude, like, after the ride, they have all this Star Wars stuff, and you can build your own light saber, and I read online that they have like this rebel spy and I totally am going to be the rebel spy and—"

Kurt just nods along, sneaking glances back at the cast member with the amazing smile. He catches Kurt’s gaze once, and gives a small wave, which Kurt hesitantly returns.

"Finn," Kurt says, still distracted but still partially listening, “if anyone was going to be a spy on this thing, it’d be me, okay?"

"No way, dude, just you wait and see."

Kurt doesn’t think much of it when they’re seated and Blaine is going through the safety instructions that he looks at Kurt more than once (that’s normal, right?). He doesn’t think much of it when Blaine says his final parting ("Enjoy your flight, and may the force be with you")  _right_  to Kurt.

But when Kurt (in a rather flawless picture, he might add) is picked as the rebel spy, Kurt thinks that maybe there’s a little something to it all.


	45. Sexiled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **10/18/12**.
> 
>  **rachichi-x prompted:** Blaine and Kurt both get sexiled at college by their respective roommates during their first week of college and meet for the first time in some sort of student lounge area

Boring. Boring. Boring. Infomercial. Boring. Boring. Boring. Bo—wait, is that? no—ring. Blaine slumps on the couch in the lounge, flipping channels in a rather disgruntled fashion and glaring at everything that flickers across the screen. He hadn’t even had time to grab his laptop or a book when Arthur (his roommate) had dragged a rather pretty redhead into their dorm, introduced her as his girlfriend, and then asked Blaine if he could please have some  _alone time_  for the next several hours.

Not even four days into his first semester at college and he’s already been  _sexiled_. At least his roommate had the decency to do it in the middle of the afternoon and didn’t expect Blaine to sleep somewhere else that night.

But they really need to come up with some sort of advance warning system—like a text code, or  _something_. That way Blaine can be well out of the room without meeting people and knowing and thinking about—oh god, about what’s going on in his room _right now_.

 _Please stay away from my things, please don’t be kinky, please have very, very vanilla sex far away from anything I ever have to touch ever again_.

He’s snapped out of his thoughts as the door bangs open a little more forcefully than necessary, and he’s greeted with a, “fucking  _perfect_ " as someone else enters the lounge.

A… Wow, a  _really_  attractive someone, even if they seem slightly disgruntled.

He doesn’t say anything, just heads to the table at the side of the room and folds himself down into a chair—he’s empty handed, save for his keys, which Blaine finds rather peculiar (not that he has anything with him, either).

"Can I help you?" The boy is looking at him now, and Blaine is taken aback by the high register of his voice; he hadn’t been expecting it, but he hadn’t expected this boy to do anything but ignore him either, so…

Wait.

 _Shit_. He’d been caught staring.

"Oh, um, no, I just—are you okay?" Blaine winces— _way to go, charming_.

"Not that it’s any of your business, but yes." The boy sits up, pulling his shoulders back until his posture is near-perfect. “Just annoyed because my asshole of a roommate decided he needed the room for the unforeseeable future."

 _Woah_. Blaine only hopes that he’s never on the receiving end of  _that_  wrath.

Wait.

"So… You were sexiled, too?"

He watches as the boy bristles, opening his mouth to retort, when all the fight drains out of his posture and he slumps forward against the table.

"Yes,  _ugh_ , we’ve been at school less than a  _week_ , how is my roommate already… When I—" He stops abruptly, eyes widening and face reddening, and Blaine is kind of dying to know what the end of his sentence was going to be. “Anyways, I was right in the middle of a Project Runway marathon, and now—"

"Wait, wait, Project Runway marathon? What channel?"

The boy looks at him strangely before rattling off a channel number, and Blaine eagerly changes it. It must have been a commercial when he flipped past.

"You… Like Project Runway?" The boy asks carefully, and Blaine throws him a disbelieving look.

"Ugh, who doesn’t?"

"Most of the straight, male population."

Blaine can’t help but grin, and he sits back and looks at the television.

"Well, that explains it then—because I am definitely  _not_  straight." He taps the volume a little louder, and then grins. “I love this season, but I might be a little biased—I had the biggest crush on Daniel."

"Oh god, I hope you mean Vosovic."

"Obviously." Blaine turns and grins at the boy, and then scoots over on the couch and gestures to the open space. “Want to watch together?"

For the first time, the boy smiles, and Blaine is pretty sure his heart stops in his chest.

"Sure."

He heads to the couch, perching on the edge before settling back against the cushions, eyes already narrowing in on the television—but Blaine can’t seem to look away from him.

"My name’s Blaine," he says, holding out his hand, and the boy turns to look at him in surprise. He smiles again, hesitantly slipping his hand into Blaine’s hold, and they stay there, gripping without shaking.

"Kurt."


	46. To Kiss at Midnight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **10/22/12**.
> 
>  **poopheadblaine prompted:** blaine rushing to get to kurt on time to kiss him at midnight *u*

What had started as a, “We need champagne! Do you want any champagne?" has turned into Blaine standing in a room full of people he doesn’t really know, holding two champagne flutes, and not having any idea where his boyfriend is five minutes to midnight. In retrospect, it had been a stupid decision, but it had also been a spur-of-the-moment thing.

But champagne doesn’t mean anything if he can’t ring in the new year with his lips sealed firmly to Kurt’s.

He remembers they were mingling with some of Blaine’s classmates by an area of couches, and he pushes past people dancing in groups or in couples, weaving through conversations and occasionally blurting out a rushed, “Hi! Happy New Year!" before he continues on.

When he reaches the couches, he does see the girl—Sydney—whose dress Kurt had been complimenting, but he doesn’t see  _Kurt_.

"Syd! Hey!" He pushes towards her, feeling a little breathless from fighting through the crowd. “Have you seen Kurt?"

She stares at him quizzically.

"He just left to go find you!" She calls over the sounds of the party, as it starts to wind up even further. Blaine has two minutes now, and he’s spilled over half the champagne. Realizing it’s a lost effort, he hands them to her, yells, “thanks!" and then pushes back into the crowd.

When searching with his eyes and his memory doesn’t work, Blaine relies on his voice.

"Kurt!" He calls, wishing he was just a little taller so that he could see over all of these girls in ridiculously high heels with their grotesquely tall boyfriends (okay, 5’11" is not _grotesque_ , but why is everyone so  _tall?_ ). It would also help if it wasn’t so loud.

"Kurt!" He calls again, wincing as he’s elbowed in the ribs.

"One minute!" Someone calls.

"Kurt!" Blaine yells more insistently.

"Blaine!" He hears back.

"Marco!" Someone else yells.

"Polo!"

There’s laughter, and Blaine ignores it. He catches a glimpse of styled brown hair, and pushes towards it, just as the people around them yell, " _Thirty!_ ”

"Kurt!" Blaine stumbles through a wall of people, and right into his boyfriend’s arms.

"There you are," Kurt says, smiling at him and helping him upright. “I hope you learned your lesson in all of this."

“ _Twenty!_ ”

"I did." Blaine weaves his arms around Kurt’s neck, sighing a little as Kurt’s hands settle on his hips. “Champagne at midnight is overrated."

Kurt laughs.

“ _Ten!_ ”

"And maybe next year we just do our own thing," Kurt says, his voice barely audible over the cheering and yelling.

“ _Five!"_

Blaine touches their foreheads together.

“ _Four!"_

"Sounds good to me."

“ _Three!_ ”

Kurt’s nose bumps against his.

“ _Two!"_

Blaine surges forward.

_"One!"_

And they’re kissing, as people around them scream in celebration and glitter explodes in the air, floating down around Kurt and Blaine. Later, Kurt will find it stuck in the folds of his clothes and in the depths of Blaine’s hair, but for now they’re blind to it.

A kiss to end the old year, and a kiss to ring in the new one.


	47. The Ghost and the Skeleton

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **10/22/12**.
> 
>  **inkystars prompted:** Kurt and Blaine at a Halloween masquerade.

Blaine had insisted that part of the fun of going to the masquerade was finding each other once they were there. Kurt had to admit that the idea was all very romantic, but it also meant that he was kept out of helping with Blaine’s costume entirely and, thus, has no idea what it looks like. As romantic as the whole thing is supposed to be, it all falls rather flat when Kurt can’t actually find his fiancé.

"You’ll find him," Rachel assures, patting his arm and smiling. She’s dressed as a rather lovely French aristocrat (with Kurt’s constant insistence, of course), holding a dainty lace mask to her face. “Until then, dance with me?"

Kurt gives a bow, dipping low; he’s dressed all in white, his suit distressed and a little rough around the edges while still fitted and flawless. White powder is dusted over what can be seen of his skin, and even his hair is faded with it. He’s a ghost—at least, if ghosts were at all savvy to fashion or styling. Rachel had suggested maybe adding a few rattling chains, but he wasn’t exactly trying to cross into a  _A Christmas Carol_ territory. After all, it’s Halloween.

His white mask sits secure on his face, tied with a comfortable ribbon, and he whisks Rachel around the dance floor to a waltz—even if the music doesn’t exactly call for it, their costumes certainly do.

Until, of course, the music changes, and more people fall into the steps.

"Excuse me."

They stop, turning to see a man clad in black—he’s dressed to the nines, down to a waistcoat and top hat, but his mask and the make-up on his face make him look drawn and skeletal, while some of his garments appear tattered.

It’s a costume, and a mask, but Kurt knows who it is the moment the words are spoken. After all, he’s heard them before.

"May I have this dance?"

Rachel grins at him, squeezes his arm, and then melts back into the throng of dancers.

Blaine bows, and Kurt can’t stop himself from smiling as he whispers back, “you may."

They fall into an easy waltz, although they migrate closer than many of the other dancers, their circles changing from close and intimate to wide and grand. They switch, like a tango, changing leads with the tempo of the music almost seamlessly in a way they’ve been practicing in lessons for over a few months now.

"You found me," Kurt says quietly, keeping their eyes locked and feeling a little silly in a mask.

"Of course I did," Blaine responds with a grin, sweeping Kurt into a sudden spin and then pulling him close.

"And we match. What made you go with the undead theme?"

"Let’s just say I had a little help on my part."

"I am never telling that woman anything again."

Blaine laughs, and Kurt can’t keep the scowl on his face; they switch again, and this time Kurt dips Blaine back, pausing them amidst a swirl of dancing couples.

"So did you want us to look like a ghostly wedding couple?" Kurt asks, as they ease back to standing. Blaine tips forward, brushing his lips to Kurt’s and hardly able to hide his smile. He can feel Blaine squeeze his hand, no doubt reveling in the way he can feel Kurt’s engagement band even beneath the fabric of his glove—Kurt had done the same exact thing, not very long before.

"Maybe," Blaine whispers as the music shifts around them again—still slow, but more intimate, bodies drawing closer so that Blaine and Kurt can move to stand chest to chest. “I knew you’d make a lovely ghost—and I was right—and there’s only so many ways to compliment that." He presses his cheek next to Kurt’s, no doubt smudging black make-up into Kurt’s skin. “The top hat may have been pushing it, though."

"No." Kurt reaches up to tap at it, tilting it back only slightly on Blaine’s head. “I like it."

He can feel Blaine’s smile against his cheek.

"I like  _you_."

"And I  _love_  you." Kurt turns to brush his lips to the shell of Blaine’s ear, grinning. “Happy Halloween."


	48. Okay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **10/25/12**.
> 
>  **prettyprettyperfect prompted:** You the best fluff writer so you should write something cute. Like kid!klaine giving each other valentines day cards.

There’s a heart on his desk.

Not in his Valentine’s Day bag, like everything else, but right there on his desk for everyone else to see. It’s big, and pink, and has lace and glitter on it. It’s not like all the Valentines Kurt has gotten in the past—the ones like his dad buys him at the grocery store, where he just signs his name and then brings them to class. The heart is a little uneven, and the writing on it is careful and done in pretty, pretty cursive.

 _You’re the prettiest boy in class, and I wish you would be my Valentine_.

There’s no name, or initials, or even a,  _your secret admirer_. But there are Hershey’s Kisses taped to the bottom, and Kurt touches them reverently as he falls into his chair.

The girl he sits next to—Mercedes—is giggling behind her hands and looking at him.

"Do you know who gave me this?" He asks, touching the heart—it’s made of construction paper, and it’s a little rough to run his fingers over. Mercedes just smiles at him, but then she’s nodding, scooting her chair closer.

"They told me not to tell," she says very quietly, looking around like Kurt’s secret admirer (they might not have signed the Valentine that way, but Kurt will think of them that way) will come out of nowhere and tell her to stop. Kurt kind of hopes that does happen, so then he’ll know who it is. Everyone was up and exchanging Valentine’s, and Kurt hadn’t thought about watching his desk. He’s done the whole Valentine’s Day thing a lot, but he’s never actually gotten something  _special_ , something  _just for him_.

He frowns at the heart, but then can’t help but smile when he realizes that some of the Hershey’s Kisses are Hugs.

_XOXO_

"So are you not gonna tell?" Kurt asks, looking over at her and frowning still, and she frowns back at him.

"Promise not to say I told you?" She whispers, and Kurt crosses his index finger over his heart as he nods. Mercedes leans in even closer, and Kurt almost pushes away because he thinks she might blow in his ear (and he  _hates_  it), but then she’s just saying, very quietly, “It was  _Blaine_."

Kurt sits straight so fast that Mercedes has to jerk back so that they don’t bump heads. Kurt’s eyes snap immediately to the boy in the sweater vest, with the gelled hair and the bow tie covered in hearts. Kurt had liked the bow tie as soon as he’d seen it. Blaine is sitting at his own desk, laughing with Rachel and Quinn as he unwraps a pink Tootsie Pop.

Blaine gave him the Valentine?

Kurt can’t stop staring, mouth hanging open a little bit, and he almost doesn’t hear Mercedes say, “I get to be the Maid of Honor at your wedding."

He presses his hands against his face, feeling his cheeks heat up, but he’s still staring at Blaine—what does he do now? Does he go and say something to him?

Blaine looks over then, lollipop hanging from his mouth, and his eyes go wide when he notices that Kurt is looking at him. Kurt blushes harder, but… But Blaine blushes, too, and looks away. Kurt ducks his head, smiling, and when he glances back up, Blaine is looking again.

So Kurt smiles, shyly, and Blaine smiles back, hesitantly.

Kurt’s never had anyone  _like_   _him_  like him, except that one time when Mercedes did, but that had been weird. He doesn’t know what to do. He bites his lip, and then pulls out his paper and his red marker. He draws a heart, not too-too big, but big enough, and then, in his best cursive, writes inside of it.

Blaine is still looking at him when he finishes, and Kurt glances around to make sure that no one else is looking (because this is  _very_  private, and he doesn’t want anyone else to see).

He holds up his notebook, and then ducks behind it.

 _Okay_.


	49. Underneath the Mistletoe Last Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **11/19/12**.
> 
> Based on [my holiday sidebar gif](http://static.tumblr.com/u63c0ey/62Wmcusfd/mistletoe.gif).

The auditorium is empty.

Blaine looks around, a frown set on his face, and then heads down the rows to the stage. He pulls his phone out of his pocket, bringing up the text from Kurt—the time is right, the place is right, and yet Blaine is the only one there.

He wanders up onto the stage, still casting looks around, when he hears the telltale sound of boots on wood.

"Hey stranger," Kurt says with a small smile as he appears from backstage, pushing past curtains and looking slightly self conscious with his hands tucked in his pockets.

"There you are." Blaine turns to greet him, smiling in confusion when Kurt stops a few steps short. “So why did you ask me to meet you here?"

Instead of answering, Kurt presses his lips together and glances upwards. Blaine looks at him strangely, eyebrows furrowed together, before he follows Kurt’s line of sight and—

There, hanging down over the stage, is a bundle of twinkling lights and something green and a big red ribbon… Blaine’s mouth falls open, and then he’s laughing, head dropping forward in disbelief.

"Mistletoe?" He asks, amused, watching Kurt’s boots come into view as he steps closer. Kurt just hums in the affirmative, and Blaine glances back up at him and the softness in his gaze. Blaine loves Christmas, and mistletoe is  _silly_  and not at all something they need (as if Blaine would let some plant dictate when and where he gets to kiss Kurt). But Blaine knows that this is mistletoe that Kurt  _planted_ —never mind that it’s strangely hanging over the stage, but it’s also the fanciest mistletoe Blaine has ever seen, and, well, Kurt’s never one to do something halfway.

Kurt looks so strangely nervous, like he’s scared Blaine will think badly of his silly, romantic notion. But Blaine doesn’t think it’s silly at all.

"You know, you can kiss me now if you want—"

Blaine surges forward, not even waiting for Kurt to finish before he seals their lips together. His hands find Kurt’s hips, curving there in a way that they are well-acquainted with. Kurt twines his arms around Blane’s neck, pulling him in closer and tilting his head to slot their lips more perfectly together. It’s a familiar dance for them, a kiss they’ve shared a million times before, but the repetition of it never takes away from it. It is never  _less_ , it is always  _more_ ,  _more_ ,  _more_.

"Merry Christmas," Kurt whispers, breath ghosting over Blaine’s lips. He leans in and kisses Kurt again, short and sweet, before rubbing their noses together.

"Merry Christmas."


	50. Delicate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **06/14/13**.

Kurt still has that flighty, fidgety feeling in all of his limbs. Like he’s so happy that he’s trying to go everywhere at once. It’s very distracting. Or maybe it’s the way Blaine is looking at him–completely engaged, which isn’t unusual, but there’s  _something else_ there now, something that Kurt can’t tear his eyes away from.

It must be what happens when you kiss someone. You just start to look at them differently.

Well,  _obviously_.

He’s not even sure what he’s talking about. Sometimes Kurt can just talk, like he’s on autopilot. It happens when he’s anxious or nervous, but it also happens when he’s too excited. Everything is trying to pour out at once that it ends up spilling from his mouth. He’s not even listening to himself, too distracted by Blaine to even care about what he’s saying at that moment.

Then, without any sort of prompt, Blaine’s finger is brushing against his face. The fleeting touch on the soft, sensitive skin just above his cheek and near his eye makes Kurt come to an ungraceful, stumbling halt.

Blaine says something. Kurt doesn’t exactly catch it. But then Blaine is holding his finger up, and Kurt looks at it, at the delicate half-moon curve of an eyelash that’s balanced there.

"Make a wish." Blaine’s voice is quiet, a little sing-song slipping past a shy smile. Those are still new, still precious–that smile he gets around Kurt sometimes. Kurt doesn’t say anything, presses his lips together for a second, and then closes his eyes and blows.

When he blinks them open again, the eyelash is gone, and Blaine’s hand is settled in his lap again, smile still soft and wriggling under Kurt’s skin in a way that’s still so wonderfully new.

"You were saying?" Blaine raises his eyebrows, and Kurt huffs out a laugh, eyes wide as he shakes his head.

"I don’t even remember."

And then Blaine is laughing, too, like he completely understands.


	51. Kurt and Blaine at Cheesecake Factory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **06/21/13**.
> 
>  **Anonymous prompted:** Klaine at Cheesecake Factory

"I hate this part," Kurt mutters, the menu opened flat on the table as he stares at it morosely. Blaine huffs out a fond, amused laugh from the other side of the booth, and Kurt lifts his eyes to glare at him.

"No, you don’t." His own menu is folded back and propped in front of him. Kurt can tell that Blaine has already made his decision. “You love this part. This is the reason we come here."

"Excuse me, you’re a pretty big fan of their salad options."

The toe of Blaine’s shoe playfully bumps his ankle.

"That’s a perk. But we come here because of the cheesecake, and you know it." Blaine leans a bit across the table, smiling in a teasing way. “You just hate picking which one to get."

"I want all of them," Kurt whines. But he knows that if he really did, Blaine would order all of them, and they would probably spend the next several days living off cheesecake. Which isn’t a  _horrible_  prospect, just a kind of expensive, superfluous one.

"I’m going to get the Oreo one," Blaine tells him, decisively.

"Because you’ve never had that one before," Kurt mocks. But Blaine doesn’t love cheesecake the way that Kurt does, and Kurt knows that. Just because he has to get something different every time doesn’t mean that Blaine does. He looks down at the list, biting his lip and trying to remember which one he hasn’t had recently.

"Get a fruity one, and then we can share."

Kurt blinks up at him. It was an idea that, years ago, would have rubbed Kurt the wrong way. But this is Blaine, and this is something they do, so Kurt closes the menu and smiles.

"Lemon and raspberry it is."


	52. A Butterfly's Kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **06/21/13**.
> 
>  **Anonymous prompted:** Klaine and butterflies

"What is it?" Kurt’s voice is high and tense, the way it generally gets when he’s terrified and trying really hard not to show it.

"Don’t open your eyes," Blaine warns. Not because it’s anything bad, but because Kurt’s first reaction will be to freak out and it’s not something worth freaking out about. Blaine actually wishes that he had something better than the phone on his camera, because this is the sort of thing that actual photographers would (and should) take pictures of.

"Blaine?"

"It’s okay, just…" Blaine fumbles in his jeans, and pulls up his camera app, trying not to make any sudden movements. Because butterflies don’t tend to stay in one place too long, and the fact that one is perched on the tip of Kurt’s nose of all places is kind of a miracle. It’s breathtaking, of course, but Blaine can only imagine what it feels like to have butterfly legs scuttling on your face–his mind immediately replaces  _butterfly_ with  _spider_ , and the idea sends a shudder of terror down his body.

Good thing Kurt isn’t deathly afraid of butterflies.

He snaps a picture, and then another, and then another, before he can see Kurt’s hand groping blindly against their picnic blanket for him. Blaine grabs his hand, and squeezes assuredly.

"Are you going to tell me what it is?" Kurt sounds a little close to hysterical, and it almost makes Blaine laugh.

"Open your eyes." And Blaine tries not to feel bad about the fact that he had to get his picture first. “And don’t freak out?"

Kurt’s hand grips him hard, and then his eyes are fluttering open, and Blaine can only imagine what he sees. The butterfly is completely still, blue wings bright and beautiful, and they beat once before it flies away. Blaine would watch it go, but he’s too busy watching Kurt.

"There was a butterfly on my face," Kurt says, sounding a little dumbfounded. Blaine remembers being a little boy, and trying to catch butterflies with his hands, because he’d thought they were faeries and could grant wishes. Even now, he has a hard time getting over the thought that butterflies aren’t a little bit magic.

Blaine’s always thought Kurt was a little bit magic, too. He shouldn’t have been surprised to see a butterfly land so easily on his skin.

"Wait, don’t butterflies pee when they land on you?" Kurt’s nose scrunches up, and Blaine collapses onto the blanket next to him, curling into Kurt’s body as he laughs.


	53. A Spider in a Suitcase

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **06/25/13**.
> 
>  **Anonymous prompted:** Klaine. Kurt hears Blaine swear for the first time. Um, *racks brain for AU setting* Hotel room on Glee trip? (Like Nationals or something)

"Shit!"

Kurt nearly smacks his elbow against the sink faucet as he hears Blaine practically shriek, surprised not only by the noise but by the content. He’s still rubbing moisturizer into his cheek, but he hurries from the bathroom anyway, eyebrows high on his forehead.

Blaine is on the other side of the room near the curtained window, standing up on a chair and breathing heavily. His eyes whip to Kurt almost immediately, and his shoulders drop a bit.

"What are you doing?" Kurt continues to massage the cream into his skin, even as he walks across the room to Blaine.

"I." Blaine pauses, licks his lips, swallows. “I was getting out my toiletries, from my suitcase, and…" His eyes widen a bit. " _There was a spider in there_ ," he hisses.

Kurt presses his lips together to keep from laughing.

"In your suitcase?" He holds out his hand to help Blaine down from the chair, and is a little surprised when he actually accepts it, especially given the way his eyes keep darting all over the ground.

"Yes." Blaine frowns deeply in distress. “Oh god, how long do you think it’s been in there? It could have been living there for  _days_. It could have been in my room!  _What if it started a family?!_ ”

Kurt does laugh then–he can’t help it–and Blaine continues to pout at him.

"It’s not funny, Kurt. I really need to take a shower."

"Okay, okay." Kurt gets himself under control, although he still can’t stop smiling at how achingly adorable Blaine can be at times. “You can use mine until I kill the spider family, okay?"

"You don’t have to  _kill_  it, just–"

"Blaine." Because Kurt can kill spiders for Blaine, but trying to catch them and release them into the wild is not something he’s willing to do. “Go shower."

Blaine is still frowning, even as he nods and starts to head for the bathroom. Kurt wasn’t completely done, but he’s learned how to compromise bathroom time. Well, to an extent. Before Blaine can get too far, though, Kurt catches him around the waist and draws him closer, pulling Blaine’s back to his chest.

"I guess there are more ways to make you talk like that than I thought," Kurt murmurs against Blaine’s ear, pressing a kiss there before he steps back. Blaine turns his head back to look at him then, mouth parted and eyes a bit darker, and Kurt just smiles at him.

"Shower," Kurt reminds him, pointing towards the bathroom door, and then gestures towards Blaine’s suitcase. “Spider." Blaine pales slightly at the reminder, but apparently his fear is enough to kill whatever else had been going through him moments before. Kurt watches him go fondly, and sighs once the door is clicked closed, dropping to the floor with a resigned look on his face.

Blaine is really lucky that Kurt loves him, because Kurt wouldn’t go spider hunting for just anyone.


	54. Heal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written **07/12/13**.
> 
>  **phoenixprojectt2013 prompted:** Nurse Me ~ Klaine  <3 and.. hmm.. something magical, please? I mean, it can be anything in anyway, as long as it’s magical.
> 
> _Nurse Me - a drabble about one character healing another._

"You’re an idiot," Kurt hisses, propping Blaine up as best he can against a tree. The woods around them are calm and quiet, nearly peaceful, but Kurt knows that doesn’t mean they’re safe. He keeps throwing anxious glances over his shoulder, his slightly shaking hands giving away how scared he actually is as he peels and rolls Blaine’s tunic and lightweight armor off his stomach. “You could have been killed."

"I wasn’t," Blaine replies, a bit of a whine in his voice, like a child who’s recently been scolded. Kurt gives him a sharp glare, looks around again, before pulling away the final layer of cloth. It’s sticky and wet with blood, and Kurt pinches his eyebrows together, biting down hard on his lip even as Blaine gasps in pain.

"Just nearly." Kurt’s voice is softer then, and he looks up at Blaine. He’s hurt, but it’s not something that Kurt can’t fix. But it could have been so much worse, and doesn’t Blaine realize that? “You aren’t even armed." Kurt closes his eyes, shakes his head, and reaches for the water skin hanging from his belt.

"I don’t need—"

"Blaine." Kurt’s voice is sharp. “Your magic isn’t strong enough yet, you don’t even—you don’t even know what  _kind_  of magic it is. You shouldn’t be out here,  _alone_ , with no way of protecting yourself. It’s stupid, and if any of the masters find out—" A hand catches his wrist right before he drips the water onto Blaine’s still bleeding wound.

"You—you won’t tell them, will you?" Blaine’s eyes are large, and worried.

"I should," Kurt snaps, pulling his wrist back from Blaine’s grasp so that he can tilt a few droplets of water onto Blaine’s abdomen. He hisses in surprise, but Kurt is paying more attention to what he’s doing, spreading the small amount of cool liquid into the blood and raised skin with his fingers.

"Will you?" Blaine grits out, and Kurt pauses, looking up and frowning.

"No." He looks down again, face still pulled together in concentration. “No, I won’t." His fingers are stained with blood when he pulls them away, looking intently at the cut rather than Blaine’s face. “Don’t make me regret it, alright?" His eyes jump up. “Don’t come out here alone."

"I’m not alone," Blaine points out, holding Kurt’s gaze. “You’re here"

"Yes, well." Kurt looks away, feeling suddenly too exposed. He needs to finish up so they can get back to the school, where it’s safe. Every second they squander is another second exposed to danger. “You’re lucky for that, aren’t you? Otherwise you’d be bleeding out all over the forest floor." Kurt gives Blaine a very significant look, and only feels a small amount of self satisfaction when Blaine pales.

"Is it really that bad?" Blaine’s voice wavers and he looks down, trying to see it.

"Not too bad, but if you hadn’t had help, it could have been." Kurt doesn’t need to reiterate what he’s said enough already—at this point, the  _not being alone_  and  _not being an idiot_  is probably implied in what he says.

"So you’re going to—"

"—heal it? Yes. Just. Deep breaths, okay?" Kurt’s magic isn’t fully developed either, but he knows he’s a cleric, is already deep in the proper training. Blood might not affect him the way it once had, but it doesn’t make the actual process any easier. On Blaine, or on him.

"…is it going to hurt?" Blaine’s eyes are wide, and Kurt just looks down, mouth set grimly.

"What do you think?" He quirks an eyebrow, but doesn’t look up, settling his hands side by side with palms open downwards, index fingers pressed together. He can see Blaine breathing deeply, and takes comfort in the fact that at least Blaine is listening to him. His lips start to move around the incantation, but it’s not something he says, not really. It’s something he feels, pulling at the strings of his magic and directing them like a needle pulling thread. The white light starts to pulse from his hands—a soft, pleasant, almost comforting glow, too bright to look at comfortably. Blaine lets out a shout of surprise, and Kurt wishes he had someone else with him, someone to keep Blaine from moving because if he  _moves_  it will only take that much longer.

But Blaine doesn’t move, almost like he knows that’s not what Kurt wants him to do. He makes choked off sounds, like sobs or groans of pain, and Kurt wills his magic to go faster even though he knows it doesn’t work that way.

It doesn’t take too long—the wound isn’t incredibly bad, and is more of a nasty cut than a gash. It’s mostly surface damage. When Kurt’s done, and the light and magic fades back into him, he sits back on his heels, watching Blaine’s face carefully. They don’t—he doesn’t get to practice on humans often, not for real. Every cut he’s healed has been under the watchful eyes of a master, but it’s never—not like this. He’s afraid, for a moment, that maybe he did something wrong, when Blaine’s eyes are opening, looking a little dazed but very much alive.

Kurt breathes a sigh of relief.

"Are you okay?" He asks, gently, leaning forward and hesitantly touching Blaine’s arm.

"I—yeah." Blaine blinks, clearing his vision. “I’m fine." Kurt watches as Blaine’s hand touches at the now smooth, healed skin of his stomach, watches as he looks down at it in wonder.

"Never been healed before?" Kurt can’t help the small amount of teasing in his voice, or the small amount of pride that wells up in him. He did it, he did a good job, Blaine is fine.

"Not really. I mean, when I was little, my mother used to take me to the local healer, but that’s not…" Blaine looks up at Kurt. “Healers aren’t clerics."

"No." Kurt shakes his head, feels a pulse of confidence at the awe in Blaine’s voice, and then he pushes himself up to his feet before offering a hand to Blaine. “Come on. We should get back."

"Are—" Blaine stumbles a bit as he stands, and Kurt helps him steady himself. Sometimes it takes the body a little while to realize it isn’t injured anymore. “Are you okay?"

Kurt blinks at him, quizzically.

"I-I always heard stories about clerics, how when they healed people…" Blaine’s eyes flick down to Kurt’s stomach, and Kurt’s eyes widen with dawning realization.

"No, that doesn’t happen." The idea makes something horrible twist in Kurt’s stomach, and he’s so grateful that that rumor never held any ground. “I just feel a little tired afterward, just like when you use magic. It doesn’t—it doesn’t hurt me, no."

Kurt wonders, if it did, if he’d still be able to be a cleric, if he’d still be able to heal people.

"I’m glad." Blaine smiles, bright and so relieved, and it makes Kurt smile, just a little bit. Before he remembers where they are.

"Seriously, though, we need to go back. Before it gets too dark, or…" He casts his eyes around. He’s been terrified of forests since he was a child, when his mother used to read him stories. It was only once he was older, and had started attending the school, that he understood how very founded his childhood fears were. Blaine nods, gaining strength with every second he stands, and they begin to wind their way through the trees, picking their way carefully across the uneven ground.

"Thank you, by the way," Blaine says, once the feeling of immediate danger lessens, the trees around them thinning.

"For?" Kurt turns to look at him, and Blaine grins again.

"For saving me, of course." Blaine dips his head, and Kurt is a little taken aback—he’s a cleric (well, in  _training_ ), and people don’t tend to thank for things they often just expect. More than that, Kurt’s never had someone bow their head like that to him. He feels his face heat up, and turns away, nodding slightly.

"Of course I saved you." Kurt’s voice comes out softer than he intends. Blaine smiles at him again, and Kurt is more sure when he returns it. They can see the spires of the school now, and they walk back, side-by-side, in companionable silence.


	55. Your Everyday Prince Charming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written on **09/20/13**.

"Do you want to sit down?"

It takes Kurt a minute to realize someone is  _talking_  to him, too focused on trying to keep himself from being pressed up against all of the other people crowded into the subway car. It's just another part of living in New York, Kurt knows, but that doesn't mean he has to feel comfortable with it. No one likes to be pressed up against someone sweaty, or dirty, or that tries to cop a feel that leaves Kurt spending the extra money on taxis until he feels clean and safe again.

The guy who asked is sitting just beside him, pulling an earbud out as he stares up at Kurt with friendly, earnest brown eyes and a nice smile.

He's handsome.  _Devastatingly_  handsome.

And he's wearing a bow tie.

"What?" Kurt asks, even though he's pretty sure he heard, voice raised to be heard over all the other passengers.

"Do you want to sit down?" The guy's voice gets just as loud, and Kurt can't mistake what he asked this time, as unusual as it is. Seats on the subway are like gold at this time of day—Kurt has seen people turn their faces away or hide behind books and magazines rather than face an older person forced to stand, just because they're unwilling to give up their seat claim.

The fact that Kurt is neither elderly, or injured, or  _pregnant_ , or anything like that, makes the guy's offer all the more strange. He raises an eyebrow, and shakes his head.

"No, that's okay, I'm fine—" The train suddenly starts to move and Kurt's not positioned just right, stumbling forward slightly when his grip on the closest bar isn't all that great. It's probably one of the most humiliating things to happen to him, and he's lucky he doesn't end up head-butting someone in the ass. No, his helpful stranger quickly catches his arm and helps him right himself, an amused expression on his face.

"I—my grip was bad," Kurt babbles, embarrassed, and then the guy is slinging the strap of a bag across his body and standing. The way he moves and positions himself, even while the subway moves, is enough to tell Kurt that he's lived in New York for awhile.

"I insist." He does a flourishing notion with his hand, a twirl of his wrist as if he's presenting a throne rather than a dirty seat on a subway. It makes Kurt smile, and seeing as one of the other passengers that's hovering around like a buzzard preparing to scavenge, he figures—why not? This guy obviously doesn't intend to sit there anymore. Maybe he's getting off the train soon.

"I…" Kurt sits, folding his own bag in his lap as the guy takes his spot, dutifully looping his arm around the pole. "Thank you." It's not a long ride back to his apartment, but it isn't short, either. He doesn't normally mind standing during his commute home, and almost always has to, but this… This is nice.

The guy dips his head in acknowledgement, and Kurt is a little in awe at his honest chivalry. He's the kind of guy, Kurt thinks, that would offer up his jacket if his girlfriend were cold, or who would hold the door open as people excited a theater. Kurt gave up on guys like that actually existing  _years_  ago. He's a romantic, sure, but actual Prince Charmings don't exist, after all.

Kurt looks at the guy, who has his head bent over his phone or iPod or something, both earbuds back in place, and wonders why he decided to give up his seat for  _Kurt_  of all people. It's not that he doesn't appreciate it, he just wonders why  _him_. He dawdles for a moment, and then the train jerks and the guy's knees bump against Kurt's.

He takes it as some weird sign.

(That, and this guy is  _really_  cute.)

Raising his hand, Kurt hesitates for a few awkward moments, not sure exactly  _where_  he's going with this, when he reaches forward and taps the stranger a few times on the arm. He glances up, looking genuinely surprised, and Kurt doesn't blame him. People on the subway generally keep to themselves—it's one of those places where small talk isn't expected, and is maybe even a little discouraged.

"Yes?" The guy asks, after pulling out both of his headphones, and Kurt has no idea what he's doing.

"I'm Kurt." He holds out his hand, but quickly realizes that Blaine would have to let go of his hold to shake it. In a movement that is not at all graceful, he pulls it back and then sticks out his other one, the motion too quick like he thinks the guy will just ignore his misstep.

The guy smiles, shuffling his things around before clasping Kurt's outstretched hand.

"Blaine."

*

They go for coffee. Blaine holds the door open, offers to buy Kurt's drink (he declines, but has the wonderful thought of  _maybe next time_ ), and pulls out Kurt's chair when they sit down.

Maybe Prince Charmings exist after all.


	56. A Puppet Portrait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written as a preaction fic for 5.07, because I wanted to figure out how puppet!Kurt got from Blaine in Ohio to Kurt in New York.

Blaine completely forgets about it. He smiles dopily and sets it on his nightstand and goes to take a shower, and somewhere between “True Love” and “Dark Horse,” it completely slips his mind. And it continues to evade him until he’s already been Skyping with Kurt for an hour, listening raptly to the new predicaments befalling Pamela Lansbury, when Kurt comes to an abrupt stop and asks, “What is  _that?_ ”

It confuses Blaine initially. His first instinct is to touch his face—he hadn’t had any acne when he’d checked the mirror earlier, but that doesn’t mean something couldn’t have sprung up in the few hours since, and it must be a  _really_  bad one if Kurt can see it through Skype. It’s not like Kurt and Blaine aren’t familiar with the less glamorous parts of each other’s bodies, but it’s still  _embarrassing_. Zits are hardly attractive, after all.

"Honey, honey, there’s nothing on your face," Kurt says, voice amused, and Blaine’s hands drop as he smiles sheepishly. "That thing behind you. It’s, um, blue…"

 _Oh god_. Blaine’s eyes widen, and he looks over his shoulder and suddenly remembers. The puppet. The puppet of  _Kurt_. The one Blaine had just laid down without a thought in the world and now Kurt has seen it and now he is  _never_  going to marry Blaine.

”Oh, um, it’s…” Blaine has no idea how to explain it, and his skin heats up. He feels so _ashamed_  about the whole thing, but he didn’t want to leave it at school—couldn’t trust that Sue wouldn’t take it away again. Kurt must think he’s a huge  _freak_  now, and isn’t that just the cherry on top of his week?

 _Hold on, this is_ ** _Kurt_** _. If anyone gets you, it’s him. Just… Be honest_. Blaine’s inner thought-process is right. He just needs to tell Kurt the truth, or, at least, most of the truth.

"It’s a puppet… Of, um… You."

Blaine feels like he’s bracing for impact.

"Ohmygod," Kurt says in a rush, and it looks like he scoots closer to the camera (at least, from what Blaine can see, he’s kind of squinting, like if he can’t see what’s coming toward him it won’t actually come). "Can I see it?" Kurt’s eyes are wide and, okay, he hasn’t called off the engagement, so that’s a start. Blaine’s mouth flounders in surprise, and then he nods.

"Sure, sure, hold on." He sets the laptop down, and crawls back over his bed to grab the puppet (and also shakes his ass a few times, making Kurt laugh). "Okay, so… Kurt, meet puppet Kurt." Blaine figures he probably shouldn’t put his hand inside of it. That’s probably a little much.

Kurt is silent for a few seconds, and Blaine feels like his nerves have become sentient and are slowly eating through his internal organs. Kurt says, “I have that outfit,” and Blaine lets out a small, relieved (if slightly hysterical) laugh.

"Yeah."

"That’s amazing, I—where did you get it?" Kurt’s asks, all curiosity and not the least bit freaked out. It makes Blaine want to kiss him. How did he ever get so lucky? How many people can have a puppet of their significant other without said significant other being completely freaked out? Not many, Blaine supposes, but somehow he is one of the lucky few. As well as Kurt. If Kurt had a puppet of him, he would so not be freaked out (it would actually be a little flattering).

"Um, not important." The less Kurt knows about that, the better. Like the fact that Kurt could very well own a puppet of Blaine because one  _exists_ , and Blaine sort of, well… Anyway, not important.

"Does it talk?" Kurt sounds so intrigued by it, and Blaine is glad. Every word out of Kurt’s mouth that isn’t ridicule or discomfort is like a balm for Blaine’s worry.

"No," Blaine says with a chuckle. "Not unless I make it—and I won’t," he tacks on, before Kurt can ask him to. "I can’t do you justice, after all."

"Aw," Kurt coos, and it might be intended to mock him but it doesn’t sound that way at all. "Wait."

Blaine’s stomach drops.  _Here it comes_.

"Can you send that to me?"

"…um, what?"

"My puppet self-portrait, can you send it to me? Oh my god, Blaine, this is  _perfect_. This is exactly what I need to solve Pamela Lansbury’s problem!” Kurt claps his hands together excitedly, grinning with delight. Blaine furrows his eyebrows together.

"A puppet of yourself?" Blaine’s not sure he understands.

"Well, not just me… Rachel, Santana, Dani, Elliot… I wonder how long that would take…" Kurt muses, and then shrugs. "But  _seriously_ , this is exactly what I need. How did I get so lucky to end up with you as a fiancé?” Kurt smiles lovingly at him from hundreds of miles away, but it still makes warmth bloom in Blaine’s chest. He smiles back, rubbing at his neck, even if he didn’t really  _do_  anything. “So you’ll send it to me?”

Blaine looks at puppet Kurt. He’ll be a little sad to part with it, but if Kurt needs it… Well, real Kurt is more important.

"Absolutely."

"You are the best." Kurt sighs wistfully. "If I could kiss you right now, I would."

"We’ll just IOU it for now." Blaine wonders if he kept track of every kiss they would have shared, if they can make up for all the last time when he’s finally in New York to stay. "Long distance kiss?" Blaine asks, eyebrows raised hopefully, and Kurt giggles but nods.

"Long distance kiss."


	57. Blind Desperation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **anonymous prompted:** klaine + blind date?

"No," Kurt tells Rachel emphatically. "I am not going out on a blind date on  _Valentine’s Day_. I’m not that desperate, thank you very much.”

Rachel levels him with a look.

"You hit on the Chinese delivery guy Monday night," she points out, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

"… _so?_ ”

"Kurt, he’s like,  _fifty_. And  _balding_.” She scrunches up her nose. “Admit it. You don’t want to be alone on Valentine’s Day.”

"No," Kurt replies haughtily, crossing his arms before examining his nails. "I have no problem being single, thank you very much."

"Valentine’s Day is still a week away. You’re going to change your mind," Rachel mocks in a sing-song, and he scowls at her retreating back.

*

"He’s  _very_  good looking,” Rachel tells him on Monday while he fixes dinner.

"It’s still a no," Kurt shoots back.

"He’s in my vocal class and he’s  _amazing_ ,” Rachel continues on Tuesday while he brushes his teeth. When he doesn’t say anything, she keeps going. “He likes to sing songs by female artists, or he’ll change the pronouns in love songs so that they’re applicable.”

It gets Kurt’s attention, but he still spits toothpaste into the sink and says, “Still not doing it.”

"He’s charming, and funny, and smart, and if he wasn’t gay there is no way I wouldn’t be taking him out myself on Valentine’s Day." They’re walking to class arm-in-arm, and Kurt lets his head fall back with a groan.

"Tell me, Rachel. If he’s so  _amazing_ , why  _is_  he single on Valentine’s Day?” Kurt asks, and Rachel gets this look on her face, her lips curling into a grin like she’s holding the biggest, juiciest, most  _important_  secret in the world.

"He’s waiting for the right guy, that’s all," she says airily, and then points to a display of scarves that might actually be in their budget. If she’s trying to distract him, it works.

"He’s a real gentleman, Kurt. It’s like he walked off the screen of a fifties movie—he _even_  looks the part. You know, if you don’t act quickly, someone else is going to snatch him right up,” Rachel warns as they stretch before dance class on Thursday.

"What makes you think I  _want_  to act?” Kurt groans, but Rachel just smiles at him, that trademark Rachel Berry sparkle in her eye.

*

Then, it’s Friday. Valentine’s Day. And Kurt can spend an entire year telling himself he doesn’t care about being single on the most romantic day of the year. But the truth is that every time he passes a couple, or a person holding a bouquet of roses, or sees the figure of a teddy bear, there’s an ache in his chest. He  _does_  care.

So when he gets home, he drops his bag on the couch, sits down next to Rachel, and asks, “So why is he single on Valentine’s Day?”

And she closes the book she’s reading, grins at him like the cat that caught the canary, and clears her throat as if she’s about to relay an epic.

"He was in a class with you last semester," she tells him, and it’s not what Kurt was expecting at all. "Apparently he’s had a thing for you ever since, and tried hundreds of times to get your attention and failed. He spent the first few weeks of our class trying to dig for information about you, and it was so adorable, I told him I’d aid his cause." She nods, and Kurt sits there, wishing he could suddenly remember every face of every person he’s had a class with at NYADA.

"…where was this blind date supposed to take place?" Okay, so maybe he’s a little desperate, and maybe this guy will end up being a stalker, but… Well, yeah, he’s desperate.

Rachel claps her hands together in excitement and then launches into the details of the blind date Kurt finds himself about to go on.

*

It’s a restaurant decked out for Valentine’s Day. It’s dimly lit and the candles are all obnoxious shades of red and pink, heart decorations covering as many surfaces as possible while still remaining somewhat tasteful.

Kurt has no idea what his blind date looks like, because Rachel had refused to give him a name or a picture. All he knows is that he’ll apparently have a dog with him (and that might be a con right there).

But then Kurt sees it. A stuffed white dog with a pink-heart nose and single, long-stemmed rose, and one of the most beautiful boys he’s ever laid eyes on staring straight at him.

He stands as Kurt approaches, and must be nervous if the way he tugs at his (white, covered in pink-and-red hearts) bow tie is any indication.

"Hi, I’m—"

"Kurt Hummel," the mystery man replies, and Kurt kind of feels like a celebrity. True, he could still be a creepy stalker, but it’s still a little flattering to be  _known_. Kurt laughs and ducks his head to hide his preening, and then smiles coyly as he glances back up.

"I’m afraid I don’t know your name," he admits, a little sheepishly, and the guy just smiles.

"My name’s Blaine."


	58. Red is for Roses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **raimykeller prompted:** blaine is a flower delivery guy; kurt thinks the flowers are for him…

It’s easily one of the worst ways that Kurt has ever spent Valentine’s Day. He hasn’t done his hair, he’s wearing pajamas, and he’s surrounded by chocolate he bought for himself, which he is eating while watching sitcom re-runs on TV. It’s one of the oldest clichés in the book, but Kurt doesn’t really care that he’s perpetuating it.

Normally, he has fail safes in place to keep this from happening. Normally, he has friends who would swoop in and force him out of this behavior. But considering he just went through a pretty nasty break-up, most of his friends are still treating him like he’s a fragile China doll. Which is fine by him—he’s content in his Valentine’s Day moping, and doesn’t really want anyone else to try and change that.

Rachel, of course, has a date, and while Kurt can’t begrudge her of that, he is still a little bitter about it. And Santana, well, she’s been out since the night before, and Kurt doubts he’ll see her until the end of the weekend at this rate.

"Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?" Rachel asks as she puts on an earring, and Kurt glances up at her. She looks  _stunning_ , dressed in red and a little too festive for his current mindset, but even his sour mood won’t let him keep his best friend in when she looks like that.

Misery might love company, but Kurt doesn’t want to be one of those people whose misery is contagious.

"I’m sure," Kurt says with a tired smile, and Rachel looks unsure and absolutely unconvinced. So he makes his smile a little bigger. "Really,  _go_. I’ll be fine.”

Before Rachel can argue anymore, there’s a steady knock at their door, and her eyes fly wide in panic.

"He’s  _early!_ " She hisses, and Kurt reluctantly peels himself from the couch.

"Go, go. Finish getting ready. I’ll stall him."

"You’re an  _angel_ ,” Rachel gushes, kissing him on the cheek before she nearly trips in her heels to get back to her side of the loft. Kurt smiles and rolls his head before he drags himself over to the door. He knows he must be really out of it, because he only vaguely runs his hand through his hair and tries to make it look semi-presentable before opening the door.

But there’s no date to be found on the other side. Instead, Kurt is greeted by a large bouquet of roses that leaves his jaw slack.

"Um," says a voice from somewhere in the hall, and then a head pops out from behind them. "Kurt Hummel?" Asks the  _very_  attractive guy holding a dozen  _beautiful_  red roses. On Valentine’s Day.

"Yes?" Kurt responds, voice weak, eyes pinging between the flowers and the way the guy’s face blossoms into a smile.

Later, Kurt will try to explain what happened at this point in time. Later, he’ll try to tell everyone that a combination of recent heartbreak, a holiday that celebrates love, a handsome stranger with roses, and  _way_  too much chocolate made him go a little crazy. Because there are a hundred reasons why those roses are there, and the one that Kurt suddenly grabs hold of is,  _They’re for me_.

It’s all downhill from there.

"I was—" the guy starts to say, and then the words die as Kurt just reaches for the bouquet, his hands curling around the wrapping and touching the stranger’s without a passing thought.

"I thought Valentine’s Day was going to suck this year," Kurt murmurs, forgetting entirely that he’s talking to someone he doesn’t know as he admires the deep color of the petals. "I think I really needed this…" he admits, and smiles a little wryly. "I wonder who could have sent them—do I have a secret admirer?"

The thought is just a little thrilling. It’s the sort of romantic thing that Kurt has always wanted to happen in his life, but reality always seems to fall a little short in comparison to Kurt’s fantasies.

"Um, actually—"

And just like that, Kurt remembers that someone else is there. Someone who is holding the flowers, someone who  _brought_  the flowers to Kurt, and maybe, for once, life isn’t going to let him down.

"What’s your name?" Kurt asks, and it feels like his heart is beating in his throat. The guy looks absolutely perplexed.

"It’s, um, I’m Blaine, but—"

"…it’s a pleasure to meet you, Blaine." Kurt turns his gaze down into the flowers, feeling a little embarrassed. He’s never had a Valentine before—all of his short-term boyfriends have never corresponded with the holiday, and Kurt was beginning to wonder if he’d be devoid of red roses and heart-shaped boxes of chocolate for the rest of his life.

He is  _so glad_  to be proven wrong.

Kurt’s never seen Blaine before, but then again, that’s kind of how secret admirers work, right? And if having a secret admirer means getting roses from a guy that looks like Blaine, well, Kurt feels cheated that he didn’t have the opportunity sooner.

Maybe it’s his mending heart, or his loneliness, or the spirit of Valentine’s Day that makes Kurt feel suddenly bold. Maybe it’s just the way Blaine’s eyes look next to a bouquet of roses. But Kurt gives his best flirty smile, bats his eyelashes a few times, and asks, “Would you like to come in and have some coffee?”

It’s not until much later that Kurt finds out that Rachel was present when he invited Blaine inside. That her eyes widened in recognition at the flowers, and then she met Blaine’s eyes over Kurt’s shoulder and grinned encouragingly at him… Before miming him ripping the tag off the flowers. It’s not until much later that Kurt finds out that the bouquet he’d crazily thought was for himself was  _actually_  for her, and that Blaine had just been a delivery boy carrying out his last job of the day.

It’s humiliating, and Kurt buries his face in his hands and groans and can’t help but wonder, “Why on  _earth_  did you come in and have coffee with me? I could have been a serial killer. Or a lunatic.”

"Maybe," Blaine agrees good-naturedly, and Kurt lifts his head just to glare at him. "But you were also the most beautiful man I had ever seen who, for some reason, was inviting me inside. I would have been stupid to say no."

"I could have murdered you," Kurt deadpans.

"But you didn’t." Blaine leans closer to him, touching their noses together. "Instead, you made me fall in love with you."

And Kurt can’t help but smile at that, eyes closing blissfully for a few seconds before his eyebrows furrow.

"You owe me a bouquet of roses, then."

"Done," Blaine says through a laugh. "Happy anniversary, Kurt."

"Happy Valentine’s Day, Blaine."


	59. Wisdom Teeth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Anonymous asked:** Blaine gets his wisdom teeth taken out and Kurt has to spend the day taking care of him aka getting his medicine, ice packs changed, food, etc. (Idea came to my mind since I got mine out this morning and have been relying on my mom all day)

Blaine wakes up, and he’s in bed. He doesn’t really remember getting there. He remembers Kurt driving him to the dental surgeon, he remembers laying in the chair, and then… Nothing. Like the time between him being put to sleep miles away and then waking up in his bedroom simply doesn’t exist.

It’s a little scary.

"Look who’s up."

It takes a lot more effort for Blaine to turn his head than he remembers it ever taking before.

He knew by the sound of his voice that it was Kurt, but seeing him makes Blaine smile anyways.

Huh.

There’s gauze in his mouth.

”Just in time for your pain meds.” Kurt sits on the edge of the bed, a scarily large pill sitting in his palm. “You feeling okay, honey?”

"How’m I her’?" Blaine asks, but it sounds all muffled and distorted from the gauze. Kurt smiles as if he’s amused by it, brushing air back from Blaine’s forehead.

"I picked you up, remember?"

Blaine doesn’t, but that makes sense.

"Are you in pain?"

He’s not. He just feels kind of… Fuzzy all over. And sleepy. Like every part of him is sleepy, actually. Blaine is sure that if he tried to stand up, he would flop onto the floor like a pile of pasta.

"Open your mouth for me, okay?"

Blaine let’s his jaw drop open, and he feels discomfort then, eyebrows pinching together, and Kurt looks worried for a moment.

"Here, let’s…" And then Kurt is  _reaching into Blaine’s mouth_ , and Blaine makes a noise in his throat, trying to tell Kurt  _no_ , because what if Blaine  _bites_  him? Blaine is pretty sure he wouldn’t. But  _what if he did?_  

The thought disappears as Kurt pulls bloody pieces of gauze out and doesn’t even seem bothered by it.

“‘M bleeding?” Blaine asks, his throat going thick, and  _oh god_ , is he dying? Did the dentist do something wrong? He suddenly feels like he should cry, because maybe that would make him not die.

"Shh, shhh, sweetheart. You’re okay. That’s supposed to happen. Now. Here." Kurt puts the pill in his mouth, and then helps Blaine sip from a water bottle. He’s lying down and it goes all down the sides of his face to his pillow. It’s embarrassing, and Blaine wants to hide away, but Kurt stops him.

"Hold on, hold on. Let’s get you some more gauze and then you can go back to sleep. I promise."

 _Sleep_. Blaine doesn’t realize how much he wants to sleep until Kurt mentions it right then. He watches as Kurt folds the gauze up, and opens his mouth again when Kurt tells him to. It still feels weird to have the gauze in his mouth, but if Kurt says it should be there, Blaine figures it’s pretty important.

"All right, all set. You can sleep now."

And Blaine is suddenly terrified that Kurt is going to leave. He makes a choked noise in the back of his throat, eyes going wide, and Kurt pets at his hair. Blaine realizes he’s taken a hold of Kurt’s sweater.

"I’m not going anywhere," Kurt promises, but then he gets up and walks out of Blaine’s line of sight… Only to sit on the bed beside it. It takes all of Blaine’s remaining energy to flip over to face Kurt, and the second Kurt’s hands are in his hair, he’s asleep again.


	60. Not Quite Caramel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurt has messed up more batches of candy in his lifetime than the number of scarves that span his entire collection from high school to now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **okayisalwayswonderful prompted:** Can you write a Klaine fic with the dialogue: "oh fuck, oh FUCK" and "I'm not cut out for this."
> 
> for [this meme over on tumblr](http://missmichellebelle.tumblr.com/post/127991139020/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-line-of-dialogue-and-ill), where I took angsty dialogue prompts and made them fluffy.
> 
> 620 words.

“Okay, now, swirl the pan—good, just like that, until the mixture is the right color,” Kurt says gently, his hand pressed between Blaine’s shoulder blades as they overlook the sauce pan on the stove. Blaine’s eyebrows are pinched in concentration, and if Kurt didn’t know his husband better, he’d say that Blaine was glaring at the soon-to-be-caramel.

“How do I know when it’s the right color?” Blaine asks, his voice thin, like the gentle swirling motion of the mixture is causing him genuine distress. Kurt’s hand itches to take the pot away from him, to take the pressure off, but he doesn’t. This is something Blaine wanted to do, and Kurt is going to let him do it. 

“Well. A caramel color. Golden. And if you need my help, I’m right here.” Kurt squeezes his shoulder, and Blaine shoots him a thankful smile. Kurt doubts Blaine will take any help he’s offering, but… Well, he’s more there to make sure the kitchen doesn’t get burned to the ground, really. Blaine’s come a long way in his cooking. Baking still shies away from him, and Kurt would have never in a million years suggested the particular and time consuming art of candy making, but Blaine is very insistent.

And persuasive.

And also, it seems, impatient when he’s nervous or determined about something. Like moving in together, or getting engaged, or adding a cream and butter mixture to melted sugar.

He pours the cream without any warning, and Kurt hardly has his mouth open before it’s too late. It’s a step that can’t exactly be undone once it’s taken, and Kurt stares at the pale yellow mixture with an open mouth.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck,” Blaine mutters, his mouth looser with the swear words now that they’re older and established and Blaine knows how much Kurt likes it. “That was wrong, wasn’t it?” He shoots a desperate look at Kurt, and Kurt gives his most reassuring smile.

“No, sweetie,” Kurt coos, soothingly, petting Blaine’s back. “Not… Wrong.” It’s definitely not  _right_ , but Kurt’s not exactly going to tell Blaine that. “You may have jumped the gun a little bit, but I’m sure it’s going to be fine. It’s not—” Kurt practically chokes on the next words as they come out of his mouth, “— _that hard_  to mess up candy after all.”

A lie. An utter lie. Kurt has messed up more batches of candy in his lifetime than the number of scarves that span his entire collection from high school to now.

Again, this is not something that he is going to tell Blaine. Because the key to Blaine is support, and building his confidence, and things are just going to get worse if Blaine thinks he’s already failed.

“All right, so…” Kurt hands Blaine a wooden spoon and then slips the candy thermometer into the mixture. Blaine starts to stir without being told. “Now we wait for it to get between softball and hardball stages, depending on how hard we want it. I’ve found you get a softer caramel at around 246, and a harder one at around 250, but it really depends on what you’re going for…”

Hours later, when the caramel has finished cooling and the dishes are done, Kurt and Blaine stare at the blandly pale “caramel” that is too hard for Kurt to even attempt cutting without ruining one of his chef’s knives.

Blaine sighs.

“I’m not cut out for this,” he groans sadly, rubbing a hand over his mouth, and Kurt kisses his temple.

“Candy making isn’t for everyone, sweetie,” Kurt murmurs, rubbing Blaine’s shoulders again. “But you still make the best damn peanut butter and jelly sandwich this boy’s ever had.”

And Blaine smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [read, reblog, & like on tumblr](http://missmichellebelle.tumblr.com/post/128237456720/can-you-write-a-klaine-fic-with-the-dialogue-oh)


	61. With Sharks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I guess dying with you isn’t the worst way to go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **anonymous prompted:** Klaine + 86 :)
> 
> from [this tumblr fic meme](http://missmichellebelle.tumblr.com/post/129742960695/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you): 86. “I guess dying with you isn’t the worst way to go.”
> 
> 431 words.

“We don’t have to do this, you know,” Blaine says for the hundredth time since they’d booked the appointment, his glances simultaneously reassuring and concerned. Kurt sets his mouth in a grim line and looks down at the water, rubbing at his wetsuit-clad arms and tracking the movement beneath the surface with apprehensive eyes.

“I know,” he replies through clenched teeth, voice tight with tension.

“We can just go back to the hotel,” Blaine persuades, like he’s the one having second thoughts. Like he wasn’t the one whose eyes didn’t light up the second he saw the brochure. Like doing this wasn’t his idea entirely. “Go parasailing instead.”

Because that’s what Kurt had wanted to do. And what’s on the agenda for tomorrow, actually, because there is nothing on this vacation that Kurt had suggested that Blaine hadn’t been one-hundred percent behind.

Which is the only reason Kurt is standing on this dock, right now, about to get into shark infested waters.

They’re suited up, they’d been talked through all the safety precautions, and now they’re just waiting for their time in the water, their time with the sharks, their—

“Anderson-Hummel?” The man with the clipboard calls, and Blaine’s hand is suddenly wrapped around his.

“You sure?” He asks one final time, and Kurt nods, gripping Blaine’s hand so tight that he sees his husband wince.

“Yeah.” His voice is high, nervous, and he swallows. “I mean, I guess dying with you isn’t the worst way to go.” Kurt lets out a shrill little laugh. “Till death do us part, right?”

“Kurt.” Blaine gives him a fond look. “They’re nurse sharks. You heard the instructor, they’re basically harmless.”

“They’re  _sharks_ , Blaine,” Kurt reminds him, even as they inch towards the ladder leading down into the water. Kurt watches a fin lazily cut through the water. “ _Sharks_.”

Blaine chuckles, and gives Kurt’s one final squeeze before he starts descending to their doom. Kurt watches him, watches the shark, and vows that if any of them try to eat his husband, he’s going to punch it in the nose. That’s what he’s supposed to do, right? Punch it in the face?

“Aw, Kurt, look!” Blaine calls up. He’s already fully in the water, and his hand is skimming the skin of one of the sharks.

“Blaine!” Kurt calls in a panic, and starts down the ladder immediately. “Don’t touch it!” Kurt stops, tipping his head to the side. “Is that—are you sure that’s a shark?” Blaine laughs. “I’m serious, Blaine, that looks like a ridiculously ugly fish, I—Blaine, stop touching it!”


End file.
